


Kindred

by Maldoror_Chant



Series: Diplomatic Relations [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Children, Established Relationship, Gaara POV, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Violence, for a world where precocious 6 year olds can become ninja, mentions of torture, neither are they monsters, they're actually pretty realistic, who are not terribly sweet and wise and adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-05 20:50:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 64,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13395969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: It's simple: Gaara needs Lee. So when his lover brings back his two young orphaned cousins from Konoha, the Kazekage puts up with the disruption to their lives for Lee's sake. He'll have nothing to do with the boys himself, of course, since he doesn't want to traumatize them (more than he already has during their first introduction). Lee can take care of them, Gaara will stay out of their way.But there is a shadow hanging over these children. One that is faintly if chillingly familiar. Staying out of the way may not be an option.





	1. Day One, 2AM

Day One, 2AM

 

Gaara entered Sunagakure like a thief in the night, having left his small escort out in the desert the day before. 

‘Surprise inspection of the defenses’ would have made a good reason for sneaking into the village unnoticed; the sort of small, harmless self-deception a normal human would use to justify getting out of a boring obligation to do what he wanted to do instead. Since Gaara was human in only the most technical of terms, he didn’t bother with any pretense. If he’d come in through the front gate, he'd have been greeted by the officer on duty, who would have woken up the Captains and the Council, and Gaara would have spent the next twenty-four hours studying reports on what had happened during his three-week diplomatic mission. The Kazekage did not want to deal with that tonight. Gaara bypassed the gate and headed straight home, silent as a ghost, noting only in passing a few minor flaws in the patrols he'd have to address. 

These dusty streets, high crooked houses and the souls they contained were more important to him than his own life. They were his, and his existence was bound to them. Tomorrow his duty would take up all his attention once more. But he wasn’t in the right frame of mind for paper-shuffling tonight. He'd just spent three frustrating weeks negotiating with politicians and he'd not even been allowed to terrorize them all that much. Gaara believed that properly maintained fear - enough to keep people honest and peaceful, while not enough to provoke a panicked attack - was an essential tool of statecraft. He considered it just as important as peace negotiations and the necessary alliances to keep the balance of power. Temari, Suna’s chief diplomatic envoy, had finally asked her Kazekage to go home a bit earlier than he'd originally anticipated, because she thought he needed a break.

That was his sister’s way of saying 'Gaara, please leave before you give one of these old coots a heart attack by staring at them like that’. But she was right. Gaara needed to rest. 

Every Shinobi had a private place where they felt safe, where they could stand down, be at ease and reflect in peace. A haven where they could pause and remember who they were and what they were fighting for. Gaara’s haven was Lee. Who would, if the gods of the desert were kind to their son for once, be quietly sleeping in their shared bed, waiting for him. 

Since it was past two in the morning, Gaara would make every effort not to wake him. He liked to watch Lee sleep. Lee slept the same way he did everything else, with utmost determination and spirit. Gaara enjoyed watching him go at it full-bore, mouth open, limbs sprawled, eyes tightly shut. It was pleasing and restful. And when Lee woke up tomorrow morning to find that Gaara had slipped into bed with him, the look of surprise and delight in those big black eyes would make three weeks of tedium and irritation disappear in an instant.

Duty could wait until tomorrow. Right now he needed to curl up next to a brave, kind, honest man who loved him, and unwind. 

That had been the plan. But when Gaara turned into the courtyard, he saw that the light was on in their bedroom, a warm glow making its way through the cracks in the shutters.

Strange. Maybe news of his early arrival had preceded him after all. Lee would wait up for him in that case. Which would mean another activity than watching Lee sleep, but since it was an activity that also rated high on the Pleasing and Restful scale, Gaara didn’t mind.

His step quickened as he made his way discreetly into the Kazekage's residence. Which had, at some point in the past three years living here with Lee, stopped being 'the Kazekage's residence' to Gaara - words imprinted with ugly memories of his father - and become 'their home'.

He went straight to the bedroom, slid open the door-

Gaara stayed frozen for a short second, a strangely human moment of surprise. Then he stepped into the room and silently shut the door behind him. His small bag of essentials dropped soundlessly to the floor, freeing his hands, while the cork in the gourd made the only noise in the house, a faint creak as it eased itself up from the mouth of the container.

Green eyes coldly and analytically raked the room, noting every detail in an instant, every small thing that was out of place, every clue. There had to be a rational explanation for this.

There had to be some sort of reason why Lee was not waiting for him in their bed, despite numerous little indications about the room that he was here and not off on a mission. There had to be a reason why Lee was, in fact, nowhere to be seen, and no sense of his presence in the house now that Gaara actually strained his senses to the utmost to check.

And if he really stretched, Gaara could imagine that there was some reason for the presence of two small children sleeping in the bed in lieu of his lover.

Gaara’s eyes narrowed to cautious slits. He didn’t like surprises. In his youth, most surprises had tried to kill him. He approached silently and examined the intruders. 

The first one he scrutinized was young. To Gaara, anybody who couldn't fight, defend themselves or reach his belt-line was 'young'. He didn't bother trying to figure out ages beyond that. He simply classified them as 'non-combatants' and asked that their parents keep them out of the way while he defended Suna.

This particular non-combatant had scruffy brown hair and a roundish nose in a pale, pinched face, but what drew Gaara's attention were the eyebrows. Very characteristic eyebrows, even for such a small specimen. You didn't find many of those around. 

Gaara’s first flicker of surprise was long gone by now. At present he was reacting as he’d been taught to at a cruelly young age. His Shinobi senses picked out every detail, his mind stored them, his instincts took over. Somewhat tempered; these were no longer the wild days when he could kill indiscriminately rather than take a chance. But he kept those instincts handy, along with his own brand of cold, calculating intelligence. Gaara had never fully grasped the ability of thinking like a normal human, and when he tried, he was never very good at it, so in times of crisis he stuck to his instincts still, and they were telling him to get answers. 

The child was fast asleep, curled up in a tight ball on the bed, a corner of the coverlet drawn over him. He was dressed in one of Lee’s green t-shirts, huge on him. It was slipping off his shoulder. The boy was grasping the rather dirty blanket that was wrapped around the other child, whose age Gaara put at 'even younger'. Barely more than a baby. The infant had fine brown hair of a lighter shade and unremarkable eyebrows. The whole face was unremarkable, round and baby-ish. Gaara didn’t examine the creature much beyond a simple check for traps, tricks and henges; this one was obviously too young to talk rationally and give Gaara the explanations he required. He focused on the older child, who should be more loquacious.

Gaara unceremoniously kicked the bed frame. 

The baby did no more than twitch at the jarring blow. The older one started awake. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes with his hands. He looked even smaller like that. Gaara hoped he could talk in a way that made sense to an adult who wasn't a parent. Probably too young to be in the Ninja Academy, unless he was true genius material.

"Hmmm who 're you?" the child mumbled, still half-asleep. "Where's Lee?”

That effectively robbed Gaara of his first two questions. So he just stared at the boy, waiting for some other query, statement or reaction that was sure to come. In contrast to Lee, who was all action and go-get-'em attitude, Gaara was as patient as a desert trap-spider, motionless and passive in appearance. Attacks would crash and break against the Sand while he watched, unblinking, observing the moves, weaknesses and very essence of his enemy until he was ready to strike. Then instinct would take over and crush and kill, quickly and efficiently.

Though that was probably not going to be called for tonight.

The child blinked up at him, waking up a bit further.

"...Are you the friend...he said...his roommate?" He’d stumbled over the last word as if it was unfamiliar. 

Gaara's face was set in stone. The child’s question was considered and filed away for future reference.

"No." Gaara never bothered with prevarications.

The child was staring up at him. Brown eyes went from Gaara’s face to the gourd over his shoulder and back to Gaara’s face again, particularly his hair and eyes.

"Who- who-" The boy’s voice was a sudden squeak. 

"Gaara."

The kid's eyes went completely round. The family resemblance to Lee was even more marked now.

"G-Gaara of-of-..."

"Gaara of the Desert."

The child gaped at him for three long seconds, then he gave a strangled yelp and belted off the bed. He stumbled and hunkered down into the corner near the headboard, which was a stupid thing to do as it blocked off any chance of evasion or escape. If it turned out that this boy was attending the academy, Gaara would have a word with his teachers.

The boy didn't seem aware of his strategically inadequate position. He was staring at Gaara, his eyes still perfectly round with a mixture of fear, which Gaara was used to, and utter disbelief, which was something new.

"Who are you?" Gaara asked, now that he had the kid's undivided attention.

The child gaped at him.

"Name," Gaara said in a voice that had Jounin twice his age obeying him without thinking.

The kid flattened himself against the wall and spluttered a series of syllables. Gaara played the sound back in his mind and picked out the word ‘Chiro’, as well as the expected ‘Don’t hurt me’ and ‘go away’. Gaara wasn’t going to comply with the latter request; he reserved judgment on the former, but he hadn’t hurt anyone that young in over nine years, he had no intention of starting again unless it was really called for.

"Rock Chiro?" he guessed, trying to tone down the intensity of his interrogation now that the child was cooperating.

The look of utter amazement on the child's face answered that question.

"Y-you k-know my-" The child looked torn between terror and incredulity. “L-leave me alone! _Go away!_ I’ll call my-“

Then it was as if the boy hit a wall.

He suddenly fell on his butt behind the bed and hugged his knees to his chest, his face oddly blank and pasty white, eyes blind and staring.

"Go away," he said, his voice suddenly brittle. "Go away."

Gaara hadn't been impressed by the shrieks, but he almost obeyed that request on the strength of some dark instinct he didn't recognize.

"I...my..." The child - Chiro - stared up at him, and then a bit of colour returned to his cheeks. "Go away or I'll call Lee!"

He scrambled up on his knees. On the bed, the baby had started to make loud whimpering noises, obviously disturbed by the other child’s shouting, though the small eyes were closed and Gaara wasn’t all that sure the kid was awake.

“Lee’s coming! So go away!” the older boy shouted with all the power of a cornered mouse. "Leave me alone! You drink blood! You drink blood and you're a demon and you- you kill people and keep their blood in a jar! Go away! _Don’t hurt my brother_! Or I’ll tell Lee and he’ll kill you!”

And at that the baby started crying, a weak whiny noise, eyes still screwed shut.

Gaara ignored the infant and stared at the older sibling. His mind ticked away relentlessly, absorbing all available information.

This Rock Chiro had a Konoha accent, unsurprisingly. Probably the son of Shinobi. Gaara’s experience with children was severely limited, but reason suggested that it was unlikely the offspring of civilians would bandy death threats about quite so easily at that age. The child knew Lee. He knew Lee was powerful, dependable and would defend him against a monster. The boy had some survival instincts after all.

Gaara's mind had also processed the other words and sorted them into their place. Blood. Demon. Killer. Not sure where to fit the jar...must be a garbled reference to the gourd. The boy had thrown that in his face as if the very knowledge would somehow protect him from what he thought Gaara would do. Which was stupid. Knowledge was a good weapon, but only if one had the strength to use it.

The boy had backed up against the wall, staring fixedly at Gaara. Something in Gaara's silence had gotten through to a more primitive part of his mind. That odd disbelief and the original fright had turned to the kind of fear that froze small animals to stillness at the hunter’s approach. 

Gaara formulated his next question now that the child had stopped being so noisy - though he doubted he'd get an answer at present. Gaara knew fear; he knew when he could use it, and when he had pushed someone too far to get any reasonable answer. 

Then he heard the front door of the house open.

That had better be Lee. If it's not, Gaara decided, with a touch of his old self simmering behind his control, whoever it is had better have a damn good reason for not being Lee, or he’s in for a worse night than I’ve had so far.

Fortunately the light sure step bouncing up the stairs to the master bedroom was very familiar. Gaara turned expectantly towards the door.

It opened slowly with assassin-like stealth. Gaara's eyes narrowed, but he could feel Lee's presence now, soothing to him even in the present circumstances. Nonetheless, old instincts made him step back in utter silence, aura cloaked, out of immediate line of sight. A finger of Sand curled against the cork, noiselessly easing it out of the gourd by a fraction. 

Lee stuck his head through the door in complete silence and with over-abundant caution, eyes on the bed, apparently trying to not wake the children. He blinked and looked startled at seeing only the baby, who’d stopped crying apart from some small whining noises, eyes still closed and apparently all but asleep again. 

"Chiro?" Lee straightened up quickly as he spotted the older boy. "What happened, what are you doing over there- Gaara?!"

Gaara was treated to the look he usually got from Lee when they hadn't seen each other in awhile. An enthusiastic muddle of the delighted and tender and happy and loving. Gaara felt something unwind in his soul. As long as he had that...he had at least one good reason to exist. 

"You're back! I didn't expect you until the end of the week. It’s great- oh."

Lee winced as he glanced from the children to Gaara.

"I see you two ran into each other," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck ruefully. "Right. Gaara, please let me introduce my cousins, Rock Kichiro and his younger brother Aki. Chiro, please bow. This is Gaara, the Kazekage of Sunagakure."

The boy's wide eyes went from Gaara to Lee and back to Gaara again and then retuned to Lee as if he just couldn’t believe his cousin hadn't killed the monster yet. Gaara wasn't all that sure Chiro - or Kichiro - had actually heard anything that Lee had said. 

Gaara turned to Lee as well, who was making ‘bow already’ prompts at Kichiro.

"Explain."

Lee hesitated and he glanced briefly at the children. Then he took Gaara's elbow solicitously and shepherded him from the room.

"Let's talk later. You look tired. Do you want something to eat?"

Gaara shook his head.

A look of concern edged its way onto Lee’s expressive features as he scrutinized Gaara’s face, his stance.

"Oh...Do you want-"

"I'll go take a shower," Gaara said abruptly, turning away. 

There was a small scamper behind him when he was halfway down the hall to the bathroom. Gaara glanced back.

The child burst from the door and grabbed Lee's arm by a handful of uniform, jerking down with all his weight, which didn’t amount to much compared to what would be required to bring Lee to his knees. The child’s face was a mixture of pale and splotchy red, his eyes liquid and wide, but he wasn’t crying, Gaara noted with a flicker of surprise. He’d caused young children in Suna to run away sobbing by merely glancing at them a few years ago.

"What?" Lee asked gently, falling into a crouch at the insistent tug.

The boy put one hand to his mouth and whispered urgently into Lee's ear. 

"Huh? Yes, this is Gaara. This is the, um, roommate I was telling you about. He lives with me. Actually, it's the other way around, I live with him."

Gaara reached out to slide open the bathroom door, his damn mind still processing. Roommate. He would have to ask Lee later why he thought it necessary to lie to the child. Lee had always been bashful about their relationship, generally referring to Gaara in public as his friend or partner, occasionally letting the word ‘boyfriend’ slip out and then he’d go all red. ‘Roommate’ was a new one, though, and Gaara was starting to know enough about the intricacies of Lee’s phraseology and behavior to guess this was not a figure of speech for ‘lover’ this time. 

Gaara caught a glimpse of the scene in the hallway mirror near the bathroom. Lee had stood up and taken a step to follow him. If Gaara was used to the way Lee talked by now, Lee had become acquainted with the subtleties of Gaara’s silences, and he looked concerned. But small hands tugged at him urgently again. Lee fell back into a crouch.

Gaara closed the door on more whispering- barely whispering now, it sounded more like agitated words that were trying to be a cautious whisper.

"What? No, of course I won't make him leave- Chiro, didn't you hear what I just said? He lives here."

Gaara lifted off the gourd, put it on the ground, slipped off his belt and coat. The fall of cloth on tiles covered whatever noise the child made, but he heard Lee’s voice faintly through the door, sounding puzzled: "I don’t understand what you’re saying, speak slower and stop whispering. Calm down. I'm sorry if he startled you. I didn't expect him back until Sunday."

Gaara undressed quickly, leaving the clothes in a heap near the door, while frantic whispering punctuated Lee’s following words. 

"Yes, he is, I told you...I don’t-huh?... _What?!_ "

Gaara paused as he reached for the faucet.

"Kichiro, don't ever say that again! That’s-...Did you tell him this? What did you say?"

The splash of water into the basin covered the rest. Gaara put the ceramic container down with a loud click on its tiled shelf and picked up the soap and brush. He wetted himself down and washed with the minimal loss of water he’d been taught as a child by conscientious if nervous caretakers. He thought he heard Lee’s voice when he stopped scrubbing off the sweat and dust from the road, but it was a distant thrum, he couldn’t even make out the tone. It sounded like it was coming from the bedroom now.

Gaara stepped into the shower to quickly rinse off, the patter of water nearly covering the creak of a door opening. The dirt and soap trickled down his body and into the drain, but the weariness stuck.

He was drying himself when the door to the bathroom slid open behind him. He glanced into the mirror. Lee was staring at him, eyes a bit wider than usual and mouth turned down at the corners. 

"I brought your robe," he said softly, holding up the long brown yukata Gaara wore around the house when he wasn't expecting anybody and couldn't be bothered to dress right away.

Gaara nodded his thanks, still without turning around, and towelled his hair.

The soft worn cloth of the robe settled on his shoulders and Lee's arms slid around Gaara's upper arms, lowering them gently.

"I'm so sorry, Gaara," Lee whispered in his ear, pressing himself against Gaara's back.

Gaara didn't say anything. He wasn't sure what Lee was apologizing for. Presumably for bringing the children here without informing him?

"I...I didn't know...I'm sorry Chiro said all that stuff to you. He won't do it again."

Oh. That.

“It was a bit of a surprise,” Gaara admitted. “I hadn’t heard anything like that in awhile. Where was he told this? In Konoha?” 

He was a bit worried about the state of the alliance between their villages if that was what they were teaching their children.

He caught a flicker of pain in Lee’s features in the mirror's reflection, but the Jounin shook his head in a wide and exaggerated gesture. 

“He didn’t hear that nonsense from any of the adults. I swear it. You have many friends there now, you know that. And those who don’t know you personally, well, they don’t need to make up stupid tales to know you’re a powerful Shinobi and respect you for it.”

“So where did he hear it?” Gaara asked, turning around in the circle of Lee’s arms to examine him.

Lee looked at him as if he couldn’t quite believe Gaara could be inquisitive rather than hurt. Lee had gotten as close to Gaara as anybody ever had, but there were times even the Jounin didn’t understand him. Gaara had heard a lot worse than that in his life. The boy’s words were nothing more than a distorted echo of a true past anyway, there was no point denying them or letting them hurt him.

Though it had been awhile since he’d had that part of his life thrown in his face. Perhaps it had stung a bit after all. He had to acknowledge it when he felt a small twinge ease beneath Lee’s warm soothing fingers, as the Jounin pulled the robe around Gaara with a bit more petting than was technically necessary.

“He told me he heard it from the other children, and they don’t mean it either, not really. Chiro’s just a kid. He’s not even five yet, he doesn’t know better.” Lee’s smile was timid, as if still not sure of Gaara’s reaction. “Kids do these sort of silly things all the times. The scares and dares.”

“The what?”

"Stories. Scary stories. When your parents are Shinobi, you hear about all these powerful, dangerous ninja, and the stories get wilder with every kid who tells them. When I was Chiro’s age, we had a tale about Jiraiya-sama - except we didn't know it was Jiraiya, I only connected it to him later. But we told one another about the Toad Master who'd have his familiar swallow you whole and digest you slowly over centuries-"

"That's actually a real jutsu."

"I think that was only a coincidence," Lee said dryly. "The complete absence of women and booze in the tales about him meant that we were very misinformed. And- here, this will show you. Sarutobi-sama, who was the nicest person you could meet. We used to say that if he caught you in the Hokage tower, he would tie you into a knot and seal you into a tiny pot and keep you there for a year."

Gaara looked at him dubiously. "Sarutobi was completely harmless."

"He was a great and kind man," Lee corrected a bit stiffly. Apparently 'harmless' was not the word he would have chosen for his former Hokage. "But you see, we'd tell ourselves these things, or worse, and then we'd dare each other to go and sneak into the tower. We’d pretend it was an S-rank mission. It was- it was for the thrill. It was scary, but it was fun. When you're really young, you do stuff like that. Kids make up tales about any famous and powerful Shinobi they hear about, and the further away and more mysterious that person is, the wilder the tale. Didn't you hear stories about Tsunade-sama when you were young? Maybe not, I bet those only started after she became Hokage. But you should hear what they say in Suna about her."

Gaara's eyes widened. "What do they say about the Hokage of Konoha in my village?" he asked sharply.

"Listen to the kids play from time to time," Lee answered with a grin. "They say she's a beautiful sorceress who can heal with her right hand, but if she touches you with the left, she’ll drain up all your life-force and turn you to dust, and that's how she keeps her eternal youth and beauty. The braver kids keep trying to get me to admit that it’s true-"

"And you allow them to say that?" 

"It's a game!” Lee exclaimed, answering Gaara’s stern question with an easy grin. “It's not real. It would probably amuse her, so don't worry about it. And please forget what Chiro said. It’s just as great a nonsense. You gave him one hell of a fright, by the way," Lee added with a chuckle, gently knotting Gaara's belt. "You're not supposed to actually meet the people in those kinds of stories, not for real. They're make-believe. The older children scare the younger ones with them, but they all enjoy them in a way. Didn’t you have stories about made-up monsters when you were a kid?”

There was a short silence.

"It wasn't made up. I was the monster."

Lee's face had fallen. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered, fingers gently brushing Gaara's cheek.

Gaara shrugged. "I think I understand what you mean. The children of my generation had something a bit more real to fear-"

"Gaara..."

"So did the adults for that matter. But you're saying that when you don't have an actual monster in the village, children make one up?"

"You're not...yeah, I guess that's what I mean." Lee's shoulders slumped. There was an odd weariness about him. Gaara noted it carefully, and all the other small unusual signs; the way Lee hadn’t plunged into his usual protestations when Gaara termed himself a monster, for example. Something was wrong.

Gaara was curious: why would children deliberately try to frighten themselves, when fear was something to avoid? Gaara had gone on a six-year rampage to simply bear the fear of constant assassination and give meaning to his pointless life. If he could have done without it- But this was not the time to try to figure out one more mysterious aspect of the humanity he’d mostly missed out on. Lee’s reactions were worrying him.

"So what are these children doing here?" he asked directly.

Lee sighed. "Let me make sure Chiro went back to bed like I told him. Okay? Um, why don't we try reintroducing you two tomorrow, when he's calmed down a bit. I hope he gets back to sleep. I made him drink some more of that draught Shizune gave me. Aki was already asleep again when I left the bedroom. As long as he doesn’t need a change- let me go check on them. Then let’s go get you something to eat and I'll explain."

Gaara noted the unhappy twist to Lee's mouth and decided he could wait a few more minutes. He nodded and headed towards the door-

A hand caught him gently by the upper arm, and Gaara was pulled back into a long hug and a welcome home kiss that put him in a slightly better mood when he finally broke away and made his way down to the kitchen.


	2. Day One – 3AM

Day One – 3AM

 

Gaara poured an extra cup of tea for Lee as he heard his lover walk down the stairs. He noted the way Lee moved as he entered the kitchen. Dead tired. And there was something...wrong in his posture. Weary. Care-worn. Almost defeated, if such an unlikely word could be applied to Lee. Gaara had the feeling he was going to have to hurt someone for the look of pain and hesitation in Lee's eyes.

"What's this?" Gaara asked, nodding at some grocery bags near the kitchen door. They hadn't been there when he'd come in earlier.

"Diapers mainly. Did you know that Suna only has one shop open all night that carries them?"

Gaara hadn't known Suna had any shop open all night that carried diapers, and his demeanour must have said as much. Lee looked at him wistfully, as if they were no longer living in the same world and he rather wished he could return to Gaara's.

"Explain," Gaara said, sitting down to his own tea and a bowl of canned soup he'd warmed up.

Lee sat down and stared blindly at the kettle on the hob. Gaara started on the soup while he waited.

"I got an urgent message last week," Lee said abruptly, while Gaara was swallowing the third spoonful. "I had to return to Konoha because of Katsuro. My first cousin. The head of the family, not that we have much of one. None now. At least none in Konoha."

"In order, Lee." Gaara was not liking the closed-off look in Lee's eyes.

"My cousin Rock Katsuro. He's the son of my father's older brother. Kichiro and Aki are Katsuro's sons."

Gaara nodded, then he frowned. "You never mentioned him. I thought you grew up with distant family."

"I lived with Katsuro and Uncle Osamu for a short time." Lee's lips tightened, but his voice remained steady. "Uncle Osamu and my father hadn't gotten along, but my uncle still took me in. Then Katsuro's mom died the same year as my parents - the war, you know. Taking care of two kids by himself meant a lot of work for Uncle Osamu, who also had his Chuunin duties. When it was obvious that I wasn't very talented-...well, anyway, I got moved around between families a lot when I was young."

Gaara wondered if Uncle Osamu was dead. It sounded like he was. Gaara hoped in passing that the man had died painfully. 

He knew that being handed around distant relatives like that was something Lee still carried with him to some extent, in his burning desire to prove himself. Gaara's childhood had been a nightmare, but at least he'd been important, powerful and _wanted_. Until the assassination attempts started...but even if his existence had been unwished at that point, he had mattered enough to try to kill. Gaara's childhood stood in his soul like stained glass windows in a disused temple. He could look at them, but he felt nothing towards those cold, flat relics of the past outside a few flickers of old pain and hatred. That distance helped him keep some semblance of stability. And he had Lee, his family and Sunagakure to fill his life and the cold, empty places in his soul.

He was the Kazekage now, the shield that defended his people. When something threatened one of his precious bonds, Gaara stood between them and danger, and kept them safe.

And once they were safe, Gaara dealt with the enemy. Very, very thoroughly. There was no mercy in those circumstances, only cold ruthlessness and even a certain amount of satisfaction. When the threat was eliminated and the blood cleaned up, the part that Gaara liked to think was his new and better self would come back to the fore, and enjoy the love that touched him and surrounded him. But the monster within - Shukaku, and the part of Gaara that had become Shukaku over the years, the part that would always be with him, half of his soul and a useful weapon besides...that part stayed vigilant, always present, like the strong, deadly undertow beneath deceptively still waters.

Yes, he rather hoped Uncle Osamu had died screaming. Gaara had never figured out why one was supposed to forgive the dead for their trespasses. If they were dead, they could not make up for them, and the forgiveness would never be earned. 

Lee had put his elbows on the table as he ordered his thoughts. His hands were before his face, one fist capturing the other, fingers gripping as if he was loosening his knuckles before a fight. Gaara waited.

"I got a message last week. I had to go back to Konoha urgently. It turned out that something went wrong with one of Katsuro's A-rank missions back in April. One of his teammates was killed. So was an informant they were relying on. The mission was a loss."

Lee's face had become set and his voice listed out the details like a status report.

"It looked like Katsuro might have made a mistake and caused the problem. There was an inquiry, of course. Which is fairly standard, but it lasted a bit longer than it should have. I think the upper echelons suspected something wasn't quite right. In the meantime, he was suspended. It wasn't a reprimand, just a temporary thing, right, but you can guess how hard that is to bear for a Shinobi, even if you expect the inquiry to validate your decisions."

Lee licked his lips, his eyes stayed fixed straight ahead. 

"Katsuro's wife, Naoko-san- she was a Chuunin, a really good one. It seems she tried to look into the matter behind everyone's back, to exonerate him from charges of carelessness. Or...maybe she was starting to suspect something too. We'll never know. When she found out he was contacting these outsiders- that's how the information got to the ANBU. She sent them a message. But it looks like she tried to talk to Katsuro too. Or maybe she was trying to intercept one of the people he was working for. She...um...she should have waited for the ANBU. Not that I blame her, I'd have done the same thing."

Gaara's cup of tea was motionless an inch from his lips.

"...He...he wasn't a bad person, you know. Uh, I haven't met him in years, but he-...I just couldn't believe it when they told me, but the ANBU have witnesses. Reliable ones. He got away though. He-..." Lee must have realized he'd lost his coherency and stopped talking.

"He was betraying Konoha in some way. The mission gone wrong brought him under suspicion. His wife found out, confronted him, so he killed her and escaped," Gaara summarized, fitting the half-spoken words together.

Lee nodded once. His eyes were still blindly fixed on the teakettle as they'd been since he sat down. 

"I see."

Gaara examined Lee closely. His lover was taking the facts like a Shinobi, trying to remain functional and positive despite emotional duress, but it was obvious that all this had still upset him. By the sound of it, Lee and his cousin hadn't been close; not surprising if Katsuro had inherited his father's dismissive attitude towards Lee. But Lee would still care, even so. And there was nobody Gaara could hurt that would make it better. 

"Do they know who was behind this? Where he went?" 

"Under investigation."

Gaara stared thoughtfully into the depths of his tea. The man must have been pretty good to escape Konoha's ANBU. Or very lucky. Or have very powerful friends...Gaara was going to have to look into this carefully and get the many details that were missing from this account, but he didn't want to drag the information out of his lover.

"I'm not sure they'd tell me if they did find anything," Lee muttered. "My security clearance wouldn't cover an investigation into treason. They only summoned me back because I'm nominally the head of my family now, until Kichiro is fifteen. I had to sign some papers, and also the ANBU wanted to make sure I hadn't heard from Katsuro, and give me the usual advice if he contacts me. The kids...you're probably wondering about the kids. I checked with their mother's clan first, but-..."

Lee ducked his head so all Gaara could see of his eyes was a curtain of bangs and the two fists helplessly gripping each other.

"Her clan weren't-...They didn't want-...I guess in the circumstances, I can understand their reaction. She had no direct relatives left, anyway. So...my family is a side-branch to a larger clan. I have a lot of second and third cousins. I grew up with some of them."

Once more that pinched look about Lee's lips. Gaara suddenly had a mild urge to reach out and touch him...a strange impulse, one he would not have felt a few years ago. He didn't obey the urge now. He stayed still and waited.

"Some of them have kids. It would have made sense for them to take in Chiro and Aki. But they-..."

Lee was suddenly on his feet. The kitchen chair toppled backward. Lee spun quicker than Gaara could almost follow, catching it and righting it before it could hit the ground.

"You should have seen the looks on their faces." Lee's voice was choppy with reined-in outrage as he glared at the chair's back. "When they talked about taking the kids in. Like they were talking about this terrible burden. Great-Aunt Mailin even mentioned the stain on the family name- she doesn't share our family name! They said-"

"I know what they said. They would have said the same thing in Suna."

Lee looked indignant. Gaara could understand why, intellectually, since Lee's cousins had been the innocent victims in this, but this reaction was bred into Hidden Villages and for good reason. Failure on a mission, or failure to protect the team, endangered the whole, their very way of life. Treason even more so. The threat of reprisals against family members, even if it was simply being ostracized, was one more way of insuring unquestioned loyalty. 

The reaction the children had faced wasn't deliberate; in fact most of the villagers might not even have done it knowingly. But the fact remained that the offspring of a traitor to Konoha would get a cold reception there, and Leaf was probably one of the most open-minded and lenient of the villages in the first place.

Lee was gripping the back of the chair and staring blindly at the kitchen door, away from Gaara.

"Kichiro and Aki had already slept in two different homes when I'd arrived, and their father hadn't even been gone four days. He just looked...Chiro, I mean. He doesn't know, of course. He knows his mother is dead and his father's not coming back, but he doesn't know the details. But the way he looked at me, at them- the rest of the family..."

He glanced briefly at Gaara. "I'm sorry, I should have asked you first. But I didn't know how quickly a message could reach you- and I didn't want Chiro and Aki spending a minute longer with those people. Not with all that going on. I left as soon as I could. We arrived here earlier today."

Today- last week- how long to sign those papers, meet with his clan, and take that decision- Gaara finally did the math and connected the result with the odd way Lee had moved earlier, as if dangerously exhausted.

" _Lee_."

"Sorry, sorry, I know, I ran too fast." 

"Carrying two children?"

"It was okay, Shizune prescribed some medicine, something to help them sleep at night for awhile. Kichiro's been having nightmares. I put them in these big carry-all baskets, and they slept most of the way-"

"I was thinking about the strain to your body," Gaara ground out.

"...I couldn't take too long. They're both so young. I couldn't take three days."

"How fast did you go?"

"Not unreasonably fast," Lee said mulishly, which meant that Gaara would never learn how quickly his lover had made this trip.

Faced with Gaara's unblinking stare, Lee twitched with something like his usual self and held out a triumphant finger. 

"It was a worthy challenge! Consider it extreme training! A trial of Youth and Endurance! Gai-sensei once ran-"

Gaara's glare could have sliced a joint of meat into cold cuts. Lee quickly gave up on that line of argument. 

"Anyway," he said firmly, sitting back down with the air of one moving on, "I put them to bed, then realized I'd run out of diapers. I wasn't able to take that many with me, the ANBU are still going over their house. I might have to go back to Konoha in a few weeks to settle the estate. We'll see. As for the kids, don't worry, they're only here for today. Well, I thought I could keep them here till Sunday, but now that you're back, I'll go tomorrow morning and find a place in town I can rent for us, just until things settle down in Konoha and people forget-"

Gaara's teacup clicked loudly as he set it down on the table.

"You are going nowhere. You are staying here."

Lee looked at him, visibly distressed. "But Gaara, I can't- where would they go?"

"They're staying here too, if you've decided to shelter them."

"I can't impose two kids on you in your own home!"

In the cone of light cast by the kitchen lamp above the table, the motes of dust suddenly swirled in a disrupted pattern. Gaara could feel the chakra crawling along his skin, overflowing from the part of his soul that was more wounded now than when the boy had called him a bloodthirsty demon to his face.

"This is _our_ home. This is your home too." 

The words had come out in a soft, cold tone that harkened back to old, dangerous times; Gaara's usual reaction to a pain he hadn't expected. Lee blinked, but then he gave Gaara a steady look that soothed away the ache as much as Lee's touch had earlier.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. You know that." He was obviously drained, both physically and emotionally, or he would have protested a whole lot louder and longer, but Gaara could still hear the love and sincerity in his voice, and the darkness within receded a few steps. "But the kids can't possibly stay here. It would be a terrible imposition on you. You don't know how much- how much trouble children that age are. They make life very complicated. They're noisy, they require a lot of care- you have huge responsibilities, and you work from home a lot. You're very busy. You really don't need this."

"No. But I need you."

Lee looked at him for a long moment. Gaara stared right back. The dark things inside were still riled, but he was forcing them back under control for Lee's sake. Gaara had little to no empathy for normal people ordinarily, but Lee was different; he was Gaara's lover, and his friend. Gaara knew him in ways he didn't know other people, and he knew this side of Lee all too well, he'd struggled with it before. 

Lee was a force of nature, strong and determined to fight his own fights. He set himself impossible challenges, righteous goals, he went full-out to get what he wanted with his own strength, and he'd lay down his life for the sake of a friend. But when it came to letting those friends help him in turn...even Gaara. Especially Gaara. The closer you were to Lee, the less he wanted to ask for, as if it were normal that he give his all and never expect much in return. As if he had to earn everything Gaara wished to give him. 

In Gaara's estimate, having Lee love him, live with him and put up with Gaara's eccentricities, which went from the mildly strange to the dangerous, should earn Lee anything he wanted. But still Lee hated to ask him for anything or ‘impose on him'. In part because he'd rather brashly tackle problems by himself and defeat them in a glorious challenge. But at the far back of this attitude seemed to lurk some kind of fear; perhaps that if he couldn't stand on his own, Gaara might decide he was a burden and not worthy of him. Gaara suspected, without being able to put his suspicions into words, that this attitude was linked to Lee's upbringing. He hated this scar from Lee's past with all the passion his strange nature could conjure, though he didn't know what to do about it.

They'd had this sort of argument before, and it ran through the silence between them without having to be put into words, thankfully, until it came to its logical conclusion.

"Thanks," Lee whispered, reaching blindly for Gaara's hand. Gaara returned the touch with a firm, reproving squeeze of Lee's fingers. Thanks were not needed. Thanks were for favors, and this wasn't one. This was necessary. So be it.

A ghost of a tired and rueful grin lit Lee's face. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't looking forward to living apart from you, even if I had been planning on seeing you a lot...But don't worry about a thing!" That was said with a bit more of his usual energy, and what Gaara had learned thoroughly by now was the ‘Good Guy Thumbs Up Promise Pose'. "I'll take care of it all! They won't go near your study, and I'll make sure they don't make too much noise, and- and- I'll take care of it all! You won't have to do anything."

Gaara nodded in agreement. That would be for the best. He had no human instincts to help him deal with a child, and Chiro was afraid of him anyway. The less they interacted, the better for both.

"You should go get some rest," he told Lee, picking up the teacups and his bowl. 

"Yeah, I probably should," Lee admitted, which meant he'd really pushed himself hard, Gaara noted with an internal growl of exasperation. "How about you?"

Gaara paused in the act of dumping the dishes in the sink. Good question. Which raised another.

"Why did you tell the boy we were roommates?"

Lee blinked, and blinked again, and then went a bit pink. "Well, what else was I going to tell him- no, Gaara," he said sharply as Gaara opened his mouth, "you don't tell children that age that we're- stuff like that. It's not right. They're too young to understand."

Gaara agreed that the baby was probably too young to understand, but the older one should be able to process the information if you kept it simple. Gaara wondered if this was Lee being, well, Lee, or if this was one of those more general customs and obfuscations humans adopted, particularly where sex was concerned, that made little sense when you looked at them rationally. One thing was certain: the child Chiro had better not ask for Gaara's version of this, because the Kazekage didn't have time for that sort of nonsense and would tell him the truth, and too bad if the kid couldn't take it. Chances were good that it wouldn't kill him. 

The chances were even better that Chiro would run a mile rather than talk to Gaara at all, so the situation would undoubtedly never arise. Since Lee was the children's titular guardian, Gaara would not debate the issue, and thus that made them roommates while the children were here.

"Roommates, despite the terminology, do not actually share a room in a house where several are available," Gaara pointed out.

Lee looked like he'd just swallowed a lemon. Apparently he hadn't thought that far ahead yet. 

"I could use a couple hours of sleep tonight," Gaara added, running a trickle of water into the sink. "I didn't rest well in the capital. I should be able to do it in my study if the children are quiet enough."

"Sorry..."

That earned him a Look. Lee looked like he was about to apologize again for having apologized until he must have remembered just how annoyed that made Gaara and turned it into a cough instead.

"It's only for tonight," Lee declared. "Then tomorrow I'll set up one of the empty rooms for me and the kids. I think we have a spare futon somewhere-"

"Tomorrow, we'll set up a room for the children, and you will stay in our room. There's no need for me to monopolize the bedroom if I only sleep an hour or two a night. The study will serve well enough for that, and the further away from strangers I am, the better for all concerned."

Lee opened his mouth, but his objections disappeared behind a large yawn. He sighed, walked over to Gaara, kissed him and said: "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

Gaara decided not to argue. It had been a long night for both of them.


	3. Day One - 4AM

Day One - 4AM

 

"Go home, Gaara," Temari had said. "Get some rest. You look like you need it."

Gaara wondered what he looked like now and what his sister would have to say about it.

He walked into his study on the ground floor, stretching as he went. The capital had been noisy, and the Daimyo’s guards had thought it their duty to make patrols around the VIP rooms. Not only did Gaara not need their protection, the noise of their marching feet had made his psychotic tendencies twitch by the end of the first week. Finally he’d taken to dozing for twenty minutes on the roof of the highest tower just before dawn. It hadn’t done much to improve his mood, but it had kept him from getting homicidal after a fortnight. 

Gaara grabbed a large cushion from the couch and tossed it into a windowless corner. The gourd made a small thud as it landed next to the improvised seat. He sat down on the cushion and leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, while a thick trickle of Sand pushed out the cork, hopped from its container and swept into a half-circle around him; an old habit that predated Lee. Gaara glanced around in resignation, bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Like a traveller moving from bright sunlight into the darkness of a maze of ravines, Gaara sank into the depths of his own mind where Shukaku waited for him.

Few people truly understood a Tail. Despite his favoured form, Shukaku wasn’t an animal. Animals did not have that rabid appetite for destruction, that exultant joy in suffering and misery. Shukaku was pure chakra and malice, born from the pain of the world, from hate and madness over a century ago. To think of him as an animal with material wants was a mistake. Though he did have some instincts that were, coincidentally, somewhat similar to those of a creature of flesh. He was territorial, for instance. All Tails were, even though their territories were the size of countries. It kept them from meeting each other. Sentient balls of destructive chakra had neither need nor instinct to socialize and mate. Any encounter would end in mutual destruction, hence an ingrained avoidance. 

Shukaku did not want to die, either; the most primordial instinct that every living being shared. It led him to help keep Gaara alive, since their destinies were now bound. After their defeat at Naruto’s hands, Shukaku must have realized that taking over Gaara would most likely lead to both their destructions, so he’d somewhat modulated his attempts to destroy his host’s mind. The One-Tail could not live in peace, it was too foreign to his nature. But unlike an animal, he could think, compromise and accept a complicated and unspoken status quo. Gaara had also acquired some maturity and stability these past few years that shored up his mental resistance. It had given him the cold wisdom to accept what he couldn’t change, and use it to protect what he had. It was an accord of sorts, though neither party felt like acknowledging it. 

Gaara sank into sleep and the battle started, but it was now ritualized, like a bout of kendo or the formulaic battles in the Kabuki theatre. They went through the motions, and though Gaara could never claim to have gotten a good night’s sleep in his life, at least he was no longer flirting with insanity when he woke up the next morning. 

Lee had told him that he was almost unnaturally still while he slept. His eyes flickered beneath the dark-stained lids, his fingers would tense; those were the only signs of the internal struggle. Lee had admitted that watching him sleep was rather creepy. The Jounin knew more of what lurked in his lover's soul than anybody else, including Gaara's siblings. He knew that Gaara wasn't taking a nice peaceful nap just because there was an absence of tossing and turning. But still Lee insisted that they share a bed on the brief occasions when Gaara slept, and though it had been very difficult to start with, Gaara had gotten so used to it that he had to work extra hard tonight to find his center and take up his designated battle lines. 

He lasted about thirty minutes before giving up. He felt a flash of annoyance from Shukaku behind the creature’s scorn at his shattered concentration. The demon’s life was pretty debilitating, caught within a human host; sinking his claws into Gaara’s psyche was just about the only pleasure left to him. He gave a growl as Gaara disengaged their minds. They didn’t communicate though. The jutsu barriers between them were too high while Gaara was awake, but even when he slept they never addressed each other. They already spent every single instant in each other’s company, even though the natures of Tail and human were completely antagonistic. Interacting would only compound the mutual dislike and compromise the reluctant symbiosis that had developed between them.

Gaara opened his eyes and glared at the ceiling, his expression flickering between the man the village respected as the Kazekage and the creature known as Gaara of the Desert, the one that had adapted himself a bit too well to the One Tail inside of him. He didn’t know which of the children was wailing like that, but what he did know was that if the small creature didn’t shut up-

Gaara woke up a bit further and automatically reined in thoughts of blood and a sudden silence. He settled back against the cushion, eyes closed, and tracked Lee’s movements with his ears and his sixth sense as his lover made his way towards the bathroom. Lee’s presence was soothing, even under these circumstances. Gaara let it appease him for a few minutes. Then he got up to get some work done. At least he’d snatched a bit of sleep from Shukaku’s jaws before the noise had woken him; not enough to keep a normal man functional, but enough for Gaara, who'd adapted to it. 

The night was further punctuated by trips to the lavatory, talking, crying and Lee’s hushed voice trying to keep things quiet. They were in the other wing of the house, past the large reception room and up a short flight of stairs, but Gaara’s ninja-trained senses were just too sharp for his own good. Gaara spent the night working at his desk and trying to put it out of his mind. He would get used to the children’s presence. They did not feel threatening to him, so he just had to learn to ignore the disturbance. In the meantime he could go sleep a couple of hours in his office tomorrow night if they were still this loud. He’d have to do so very discreetly though, because he had the faint notion that Lee might feel guilty over it if he found out...

Lee was prone to glorious exaggerations, but when he’d said that kids made life complicated, it appeared he was being remarkably factual.

Gaara tapped the wooden end of his steel-nibbed pen on the half-written report detailing the results of his diplomatic trip. He wanted to give it to the council this afternoon, and there were several key points to debate, but he was having a hard time concentrating. There had been a fair amount of noise from upstairs just as dawn gave way to morning, then Lee had come down a couple of minutes ago, the sound of a young child trailing him. They had stopped about six feet away from the curtain closing off Gaara’s study, and Lee appeared to be whispering. 

Chiro’s voice, sounding loud compared to his cousin’s attempts at being quiet, interrupted him. "What’s a Kaza...Kage?"

"Kazekage," corrected Lee. There was some more whispering. Gaara wished they’d just come in already. It wasn’t as if he was going to get any work done in these conditions.

"Like the Hokage?" Chiro asked, apparently echoing something Lee had said.

"Yes," Gaara heard Lee murmur. "So be sure to show proper-"

"He doesn’t look like the Hokage," Chiro said, sounding sullen and confused.

Gaara imagined himself standing next to Tsunade for comparison, and agreed that he made a very unlikely Hokage in view of that logic. Lee must have perceived some sort of slur against Gaara though, because the whisper that followed was quite stern and so low that Gaara couldn’t make it out, even when he trained his hearing to its limit.

He put away his work, stood up and headed towards the curtain. Lee stopped speaking and glanced up apologetically when Gaara walked past him. Chiro looked torn between petulance and remnants of last night’s fright, moving to hide behind Lee.

"I’m getting something to eat," Gaara stated. "Omelette?"

"Sure! Oh, Gaara, wait-"

Gaara made his way towards the kitchen without stopping. He had no patience for what was going to be Lee’s attempt at another formal presentation. Lee had this highly developed sense of etiquette...Gaara knew who the kid was by now, he didn’t need an introduction. He never bothered with them unless he thought the mention of his name might frighten off a weaker opponent and avoid a fight Gaara had no interest in.

He heard Lee trail him with Chiro until the boy made some sort of squalling noise. Lee crouched down and started whispering again. Gaara didn't listen to the words, but the tone was positive and reassuring. Gaara doubted it would make a difference. Maybe it would be better for all concerned if he went to eat breakfast at the admin compound cafeteria. Or he could go raid Kankuro’s fridge. See how his brother had been faring during his absence. Maybe stay there for a few hours...

No. If he’d told Lee not to move out, Gaara was damned if he himself was going to, even by instalments. The children would get used to him and vice-versa.

Lee appeared at the kitchen entrance, holding a visibly reluctant Chiro by the hand. Gaara didn’t think the boy’s attitude stemmed from disrespect of the Kazekage’s office. He wasn’t sure Chiro had quite gotten that part through his little head yet. The boy was still trying to cope with the whole demon thing. Gaara poking around in the fridge without the gourd, dressed in training pants and the yukata, must not make for a very credible demon. The kid looked confused.

"Okay, let’s start this again!" Lee said cheerfully, soldiering on despite the obvious disinterest of both parties. Gaara appreciated the reappearance of Lee's legendary determination. When Lee behaved true to himself, it was as if a piece of Gaara's world was once more whole, sound and stable. "Gaara, may I introduce-"

"What’s he doing?" Chiro whispered in what sounded like a blend of suspicious fear and disbelief.

"He’s just making breakfast. Gaara, let me take care of the omelette, you go sit down."

In the same tone of voice as before, Chiro asked: "Why?" He had this nasty habit of yanking on Lee’s hand for attention when he asked a question. It was annoying Gaara already and Chiro wasn’t even doing it to him.

Lee’s voice was getting rather distracted. "Chiro, please be polite. Gaara-"

"He’s got eggs," Chiro whispered in an incredulous tone, doing the yanking thing again. 

Yes, I’m all out of baby’s blood, Gaara thought with a trickle of caustic irony, the closest he ever got to a sense of humor. 

Lee made a small noise of defeat. He picked up the kid and plunked him down in a chair, then went to Gaara and tried to get the spoon from his fingers.

"Here, give me that and please go sit down. You only just came back from your mission."

Gaara gave him a Look.

Lee wilted a bit as he was reminded that he was still in the doghouse for his own voyage back from Konoha in an undisclosed but probably insanely short amount of time. He meekly relinquished the spoon and went to sit down with Chiro. 

Gaara continued adding eggs to the bowl and whisking them together. "Where’s the other one?"

"Oh, damn, Aki. Just a sec, I left him in the bath."

"What does he eat anyway? We don’t have any milk." Gaara picked up an egg-

It crunched between his suddenly tense fingers. "In the _bath_?"

"There’s no water in it. I- he crawls everywhere, and I wanted a word with Chiro-" Lee was speaking from the door, all but running on the spot in his impatience to get upstairs. "I put in a blanket and he was playing with the plug- it also makes a good place to change the diapers, easy to rinse down afterwards. Gotta go. Chiro, stay here and be polite please. Your behavior reflects on me, remember." The last was shouted from the foot of the stairs.

Gaara washed egg off his hands and the counter and added a few ingredients to the bowl somewhat at random, hoping it wouldn’t taste too bad. He wasn’t a picky eater, and Lee, like anyone personally trained by Maito Gai, could eat just about anything and usually did. As a result, Gaara had never mastered any of the basics of cooking beyond insuring it wasn't toxic. But the children would undoubtedly be more difficult. Gaara didn’t know this for a fact, but he was willing to bet that if there was a way these kids could make his life more complicated, they would.

He picked out a bowl of noodles from the fridge, sniffed it and threw it away. There wasn’t much else, certainly nothing edible after they’d both been gone for a week or more. There was a packet of natto left in the fridge and a box of instant rice in the cupboard. Along with sliced omelette, there’d be enough for four, presuming the children didn’t eat as much as Lee. Then again, they were Rocks...

A flicker of chakra from outside.

Gaara glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen window.

"Is it urgent?" he asked.

Chiro, who’d been sitting in silence at the table all this time, looked up in surprise.

Another flicker coming from a hidden corner of the courtyard. A negative.

"I’ll be back in my study in half an hour," Gaara said.

Acknowledged.

The presence disappeared.

Chiro was staring at him, his eyes round in alarm and without that dubious disbelief he’d shown earlier. Suddenly talking to thin air had apparently restored Gaara’s credentials as a reputable demon. Chiro was too young to sense chakra, so it was bound to be confusing, but it would have been more logical to conclude that the Kazekage was stark raving mad. If this was the kind of reasoning one could expect from children, then it was a good thing Suna had an Academy to train them out of it. 

Gaara filled a pot full of water and set it on the hob next to the cooking omelette. His movements slowed. Some dark unnamed instinct made him glance over his shoulder. Chiro was staring at the kitchen table again. He seemed to be tracing the grain of the wood with his fingers, absorbed, unblinking.

Whether he thought Gaara was crazy or a demon or both, it was strange for the kid to ignore him. Lack of survival instinct, Gaara thought, trying to dismiss the child and his behavior from the focus of his attention so he could get back to boiling water. 

Then Chiro noticed he was being observed and he scowled up at Gaara, sullen and still frightened.

"I’ll tell Lee!"

This was presumably a threat to insure Gaara wouldn’t harm him. Good. If Chiro believed Lee would protect him, it would give the boy a shelter from his fears until he’d figured out on his own that Gaara wasn’t about to rip his heart out or bleed him dry. Gaara wasn’t going to bother trying to convince the boy otherwise; he wouldn’t believe himself if he was in Chiro’s shoes.

Gaara was adding the rice to the water when he heard Lee come through the door. The baby was awake now, bright eyed and squirming, his face more expressive and individualized than last night. 

"We’re here!" Lee announced. Gaara noted how harried his lover looked. Hopefully Lee and the children would get into some sort of natural rhythm soon that would allow the Jounin to get some decent rest. And god only knew what they’d do if Lee had a mission. Hopefully Lee had requested some leave. Gaara would have to check that with him.

Lee supported the child on one arm, holding the small body against his own, and walked towards the Kazekage. "Gaara, this is Aki -"

Aki took one look at Gaara and started to whimper loudly and struggle against the blanket around his legs.

Lee had instincts too. In a smooth move that looked almost completely natural, he changed his trajectory to go and sit down at the table with the baby on his lap. 

"- he’s ten months old. Isn’t that right, Chiro?"

"Huh-huh," Chiro answered, still staring at the table. Gaara wondered if he’d even heard the question.

"What’s for breakfast?" Lee asked brightly. "Natto? Excellent! Do you like natto, Chiro? Oh wait, Gaara, let me set the-" 

"Sit."

Lee sat back down again resignedly, the baby on his knee, while Gaara went to get their dishes and mismatched tableware. 

Gaara paused as he turned back towards the table. Chiro had lifted his head and was staring at Lee and his brother. He had last night's brittle look about him again, as if he’d become hollow. 

Probably the fatigue. The kid hadn’t slept much last night, and the trip over here would have exhausted even an adult. Lee had the same empty, dazed look about him from lack of proper rest when he’d sat down, though now he was staring in a puzzled way at his lover standing there three feet from the table with the plates in his hand.

Gaara walked to the table and plunked down the dishes. Chiro was looking at him with suspicion again. That odd moment had passed. 

He started to set out the plates, then realized the baby probably didn’t need one. Aki stared at the plate in front of Lee and reached for it hopefully, fingers grasping. Lee pushed it within his grasp, though he kept a prudent grip on it. The baby shifted on his lap, rattled the plate and chattered gravely, a sound that probably made sense if you were a primate of the same species. Lee grinned in delight. 

Gaara fought down a sudden urge to rub his eyes and wake himself up. Wasn't there a slight chance that an enemy had gotten him through the Sand Barrier and he was lying concussed on the battlefield and merely imagining all this...? Probably not, on the balance. Gaara had some imagination, twisted and strange, the result of his lonely upbringing, but he didn’t think he had _this_ much, even with massive head trauma factored in. He turned away and went to get the food.

"What does the younger one eat?" he asked, setting the pan of warmed rice and the skillet on the table. 

"Shizune - she helped me pack when we left. She said Aki would eat some of the stuff we do as long as it’s mashed or cut up real small and can’t choke him. Also watered-down fruit juice and lots of formula. I’ll shop for some more when we’re done here. We finished the stuff I brought with me yesterday."

Gaara decided he didn’t want to know what formula was. "I’m surprised she let you leave with two small children like that." 

"Shizune understands," Lee said softly with a glance at Chiro, who was still staring at the table even when Gaara approached to dump some food onto his plate. 

"Itadakemasu!" Lee said, nodding at Gaara when the latter sat down.

"Itadakemasu," Chiro repeated like an automaton, looking dully at his breakfast. The baby blabbered something and tried to get his fist into Lee’s food. 

Gaara grunted and started to eat quickly and without much interest. Food had always been a functional necessity for him and he took no pleasure in it, eating enough to keep himself operational and little more. His and Lee’s diets were uneventful; whatever Gaara could throw together, or the health food recipes Lee prepared, which did their bodies a lot of good even if it chastised the taste buds. Gaara had the feeling that this stolid state of affairs was about to change. For starters, something called formula was about to creep in...

On the opposite side of the table, Chiro picked up his chopsticks, which looked way too big for his hands. He stuck them together, held them a little apart and then used them to scoop up the food quite adequately. Since the plate was only a little below his chin, it wasn’t that hard. Despite Gaara's expectations, he made no comment about the taste of the omelette. He ate very slowly and mechanically, staring at his plate, or glancing up in silence at his brother when the latter spat something out on himself and Lee.

"No omelette," Lee concluded, using his napkin on Aki’s chin and chest, and the sleeve of his green uniform. "I don’t think you’ll like natto either. How about some rice?"

That seemed to go down a bit easier, though Aki still wiggled and screwed up his face and whimpered as if he was far from happy with life in general and breakfast specifically. Gaara noted that Lee had yet to swallow a bite himself.

Gaara finished breakfast and went to get some tea out of the brewing kettle. 

"I need to go, I have something to attend to," he said, pouring two cups. "Can you manage?" Feeding two children seemed to take an inordinate amount of time compared to feeding two fully-grown Shinobi.

"Oh sure! We’re fine. I’ll clean up afterwards, too."

"You have your hands full. Leave it. We’ll do it tonight," Gaara said in a tone that left no room for argument. He put the cup of tea near Lee’s plate, out of reach of the pest on his lap.

Lee gave him a steady ‘you’re being bossy again’ look.

Gaara stared him down, silently reminding him of the doghouse. 

Lee rolled his eyes. "Okay, we’ll do it tonight. I have to go do some shopping. I-" 

He strangled a small noise of surprise when Gaara reached over and let a finger trail down the strong neck, just above the collar of the green uniform, then up to brush the silky-smooth black hair. Lee’s big eyes darted from Chiro - whose dull gaze was fixed on his plate as he ate - to the baby who was busy examining something he’d dug out of his mouth. 

"Um, Gaara, we shouldn’t-..."

Gaara was already out of the kitchen, trying to maintain a certain amount of equanimity over the whole invasion. He had a feeling he was going to need it over the next few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nothing Lee and Gaara do should ever be taken as the proper way of caring for children this age. They don't know what the hell they're doing. They don't even know the depths of their own ignorance. They're going on the principle of 'keep them alive', which is kind of the basic...


	4. Day One – 8AM

Day One – 8AM

 

Gaara's first stop was the bedroom for some spare clothes. He prosaically hung them from a sword rack on the wall of the study, which was going to become his room for the next few...days? Weeks? Months? Whatever was necessary.

He changed into something more formal, not particularly caring about the window open to the early morning desert breeze. Then he went to his desk, picked up his tea and nodded.

The shadow that had been politely hovering outside coalesced before him.

“Sir,” Taidaka said with a minimal salute. His mask was shoved up onto his shaven head. The face beneath it was tanned by a long career under the sun, heavily scarred in numerous conflicts, and as expressionless as sandstone. The body beneath the sand-colored uniform and body armor was much the same: solid, hard, ever battle ready. He’d been the leader of Sand’s ANBU since Gaara had taken position, and he was frightfully efficient at his job. Gaara could only recall one occasion where he’d heard the man laugh, and a dozen enemies had died shortly thereafter.

The Kazekage nodded, Taidaka put away the salute and that was the civilities out of the way.

“Is my brother around?” Gaara asked, going off on a tangent from the main subject he was sure Taidaka would want to discuss.

“No sir. Kankuro-san was sent out on a confidential B-rank mission on the Council’s behalf at the start of the week. We expect him back anytime in the next three days.”

Gaara had wondered why he hadn’t seen his brother yet. If Lee had arrived in Suna yesterday, news of the children’s presence would have spread at least as far as the ANBU and some of the senior Jounin. Kankuro was a unit commander of the regular forces and had a lot of friends in the specials. If he’d been anywhere in the village, he’d have heard the news by now and been by to laugh at his little brother’s expense.

Gaara took a sip of tea. Taidaka took that as permission to get to the subject at hand.

“Sir, I would like to suggest an alternative living arrangement for the children. The academy has traditionally doubled as an orphanage when needed. Or we could place them in a foster home.”

One reason Gaara appreciated Taidaka was because the man didn’t take any detours when he had something to say. 

“No,” Gaara answered. “We’ll keep them here.”

Taidaka appeared to have foreseen and anticipated any objection. “Lee-san would have no need for concern. They would have the best of care. Or, if it’s acceptable: my sister has children around that age, and she would be honored to take them in.”

Gaara studied his ANBU leader over the rim of his cup. He had known intellectually that the man had a sister; Gaara had committed to memory every one of his soldiers’ files during long sleepless nights. But it seemed strange to have Taidaka actually admit it out loud. It was difficult to imagine that he had siblings, or ever been Aki's age. It was easier to believe that the wind and sand had carved him directly out of bedrock. 

“Their presence poses a risk to this residence and to your person, sir,” Taidaka pointed out stolidly. “Their father might attempt to contact them and retrieve them once he's regrouped with his allies. The man has murdered once already. You and Lee-san might be in danger.”

“Not much danger. The children will stay here,” Gaara repeated without any annoyance. It was Taidaka’s job to keep his Kazekage out of possible danger and help him defend Sunagakure unhindered. And Taidaka was indeed very efficient at his job, and wasn’t particularly looking to ingratiate himself with his boss if it went against the demands of his duty.

At least he hadn’t suggested that the children leave the village. He’d even offered to put his own family at risk in lieu of Gaara, rather than have the children go. He must realize that if the children left, Lee would leave too, out of obligation, and even Taidaka knew better now than to suggest that Lee should go away. Three years ago, the ANBU leader had assiduously intercepted all of Lee’s correspondence and generally kept a paranoid watch on this foreign Jounin inexplicably stationed in his village and sleeping with his boss. Taidaka had few surviving friends, was celibate and married to his job; he couldn’t possibly approve of such goings-on. But over the years he must have resigned himself to it and started to think of Lee as a functional necessity for Gaara, keeping them as a single item in his mind. 

Gaara could imagine the look on Taidaka’s face yesterday when Lee had shown up carrying a couple of small problems in his arms. But the ANBU had not told Lee to leave, or to stay away from the Kazekage’s residence.

“It’s not only the risk,” Taidaka said, soldiering on. “With all due respect, sir, you and Lee-san have no experience in this matter, and a couple of young children -“

“-make life complicated. So I’ve been told. Lee will manage fine, he’s very resourceful. They’re not leaving. We will not discuss this further.”

Taidaka nodded glumly. He must think Gaara was just being stubborn and short-sighted. But he didn’t understand the necessity here. Gaara would love to be able to get the children out of his house, but that would hurt Lee. Gaara wasn’t entirely sure which force moved his lover in this; family obligation, honourable commitment, or simply the desire to provide the children with a refuge Lee had not had when he was their age. Maybe a mixture of all three. It didn’t really matter. Gaara knew Lee well enough to discern that his lover truly needed to do this. So be it. 

“I take it you have enough information about this situation to be worried,” Gaara said, wrapping up the subject of the children’s living arrangements as Done and passing on to the heart of the matter. 

“Yes sir. Lee-san himself came to find me as soon as he arrived yesterday, and explained the situation to me in as many details as he had,” Taidaka conceded. “Since then, I’ve picked up some more information as well.”

Good, Gaara had been counting on that. He examined Taidaka attentively. 

“Did this Rock Katsuro really kill his wife? Himself? It might have been the group he was working for who-“

Taidaka interrupted him with a firm shake of his head. “From preliminary reports and reliable witnesses, Rock Katsuro and his wife had a confrontation on the edges of Konoha. She’d warned the ANBU. He was trying to escape. She tried to stop him and he lashed out. I don’t think the intent was necessarily deadly, but he got lucky. Or unlucky.”

“What do we know exactly?” Gaara asked, putting down his empty cup and focusing his full attention on Taidaka.

“Konoha sent us a missive by their fastest bird. It arrived about the same time as Lee-san.” There was a trace of grudging admiration in Taidaka’s voice. The Shinobi of Suna respected strength and ability, the kind that could propel a reckless green-clad Jounin from Konoha to Suna almost as fast as a hawk could fly. “The message was brief, but there is a promise to follow up. Mainly, it's an apology for allowing Lee-san to bring the children here without warning us. He left before the investigators realized what he was planning.”

Gaara’s eyes narrowed. “Do they want the children back? As bait for the father?”

“They made no mention of it, sir. Maybe they do not think the father will come for them.”

“Why?”

“Unknown.”

“What exactly are they apologizing for?”

A smirk twisted one corner of Taidaka’s mouth; the other was set in a permanent downturn by a ragged scar that had cut a small chunk out of Taidaka’s bottom lip, exposing teeth. Another man than Gaara might have found the effect disturbing.

“If the father does come for the children, it would involve our forces in their internal affairs. And Konoha knows Lee-san lives with you. Having one of their Jounin’s decisions put the leader of a foreign village into personal danger… they don’t like the diplomatic implications.”

Sounded like Lee was going to get his knuckles rapped again. Fortunately, Tsunade and Gaara had an understanding about Lee’s presence here that went beyond politics of any sort, and so it would be no more than a stern lecture via a note. 

“They would have preferred to keep us out of this altogether, something I understand in this instance,” Taidaka added. “This is not something I would want other villages to know about if I were in their place. Besides, if the father comes here and we help capture him, they’ll be in our debt. But since it’s too late now and the kids are in Suna, they’ve decided to share their facts. If anything happened to you because they’d withheld information, that'd go quite further than 'diplomatic implications', so they were quite forthcoming. Included in the missive was a half-page preliminary result of their investigation and a promise to provide more as comes to light. There was also a subtle reminder that we are in an alliance, and that information hurtful to Konoha should not be spread any further than it needs to go.”

Gaara dismissed the suggestion out of hand. The concern was legitimate; no Shinobi was above exploiting a weakness, even among temporary allies. But the alliance between their villages was stronger than that, it involved many bonds, and as long as Gaara was alive, Suna would keep its promises.

“I have other sources of information,” Taidaka added. “So we have a fairly good picture of what happened.” 

Gaara made a minimal ‘go ahead’ gesture.

“Looks like it was a honey trap. An entrapment technique,” Taidaka elaborated, when Gaara looked at him blankly. 

The ANBU’s eyes grew slightly unfocused as he scanned the information stored in his mind, culling the necessary facts for his Kazekage. 

“Over five years ago, this man Rock Katsuro succeeded at a series of very difficult missions. It earned him his commission as Jounin. But after that, his record was spotty. He aced some hard missions, yet failed simpler ones. Konoha is still investigating, but I suspect he was lured. On a high-level job years ago, a foreign organisation would have contacted him. Yakuza, an ambitious Daimyo, or possibly another Hidden Village. They would have offered to help him with his mission, claiming their interests coincided, and he could take the credit without mentioning them. They would have helped him again and again with information or backup, and always asking for very little in return. It would have allowed him to succeed at high-stake missions and made him look very good. Then they would ask him to fail at something simple - something not that important to Konoha, that would have little impact on his career, and they'd provide him with a good excuse to cover his back. And so on. Each successive mission they interfere with is a further entrapment until he can either come clean about it all and lose his rank and probably his freedom...or he's theirs, their instrument for whenever they need him. It's a classic.”

“A classic? Have we had cases of this?”

“Not under my watch,” Taidaka said with grim satisfaction.

“You are familiar with it, though.”

“Yes sir. It’s how I would obtain an informant within another Hidden Village,” Taidaka answered without batting an eye.

Gaara didn’t give it a second thought either. The first role of Shinobi in their feudal society had been that of spies and assassins, and a tiger did not change its stripes. For a Kazekage, information was priceless however it was obtained. The treaties between them meant that Konoha and Suna worked together and shared information voluntarily, but all the other Hidden Villages were still fair game. 

“This man must have been stupid not to see it coming,” Gaara said. 

“If it's well done, it's hard to resist for a young Genin or Chuunin, particularly if they have a weakness to exploit. In this instance, I might know what it was.”

Gaara looked up at him in surprise.

Taidaka turned his steely gaze towards the window as if he could see a man’s soul as easily as he could see the rock garden outside, illuminated by the raw morning sunshine. 

“I read the file Konoha sent, and I talked to Lee-san yesterday. It struck me that Rock Katsuro was three years older than Lee-san, yet at the time Lee-san was promoted to Jounin, Katsuro was still a Chuunin. Good for his level, but nothing remarkable. This is only a theory, but maybe that's what gave him the desire to succeed whatever the means. During our debriefing, Lee-san mentioned that his cousin, the heir to their small family, had been very talented when he was a child, while I gather that Lee-san was something of a late bloomer. At present, Lee-san is known throughout both our villages as the first Shinobi to achieve Jounin rank with only his Taijutsu. His abilities are widely recognized. I just thought it might not be a coincidence that Katsuro's abnormal pattern of mission success and failures started shortly after Lee-san’s promotion to Jounin.”

Gaara stared at him. “I see.”

“It's only a theory, of course,” Taidaka added.

“A very interesting theory.” Gaara’s voice was a soft, dead monotone. “It will not leave this room. Ever.”

Taidaka bowed quickly. “Of course not, Kazekage-sama.”

Gaara crossed his arms over his chest and sat back, his mind coldly analyzing facts while his instincts prowled around.

“I want everything you know about this situation in a report by tonight. Leave it at my office. I also want the exact circumstances of the children’s presence here kept to the upper cadre as long as possible.” Not that you could really keep a secret for long in a village full of Shinobi. But they could try. Gaara did not want any stigma attached to the children if possible, much less to Lee. 

“Have it known that the children are orphans, and Lee’s the head of the family and responsible for them,” Gaara added. “Get in touch with Konoha’s ANBU. Go directly to Morino Ibiki, your counterpart there. Get all information you can. Offer to assist them with the criminal’s capture on the strength of our alliance. I’ll write to Tsunade. Keep me appraised. As for security, take the measures you deem necessary.”

Taidaka nodded with a faint gleam of satisfaction in his eyes at the free rein. Lee didn’t like the lack of intimacy afforded by close protection, so the Kazekage normally avoided it. Gaara of the Desert hardly needed such a shield, he only kept a skeleton guard around him to discourage assassination attempts that could involve Lee and other bystanders. But if this theory of Taidaka’s was correct, Katsuro might have more than one reason to attack Lee and get the children back from him. Gaara wished he’d met the man, or that Lee had known him better; it was hard to say how Katsuro would react now that his life had been blown apart and his wife was dead at his hands. 

“Anything else I should know about?” Gaara asked.

“Your aide was informed of your arrival this morning, and he has a stack of paperwork for you,” Taidaka reported. “And the Council probably do too. Nothing at my level. That write-up will be on your desk by this evening.”

“Good. Dismissed.” He could hear Lee moving in the kitchen. 

A flicker, and Taidaka was gone.

Gaara stared at the ceiling, trying to rein in an old impulse that was fighting with his better instincts. It was an old flash of selfishness, of unreasoned protectiveness, that was trying to tell him that a possible danger to Lee’s life weighed more heavily than the needs of Lee’s conscience and the children of a traitor. If he separated them and sent the kids back to Konoha, Lee would be safe. But Gaara was older and wiser now. He’d managed to breach his childhood’s isolation and let Lee close. He knew better. Hell, he of all people should know that merely surviving was not enough; a man had to justify his existence and create bonds with others to make his life bearable.

He would not hurt Lee in a blind effort to keep him safe. It wasn’t called for anyway. Gaara knew, intellectually, that there were very few people who had a chance of defeating his lover since the latter had made Jounin. By the sound of it, this cousin of his didn’t qualify. And with Gaara also watchful...it would be perfectly safe to keep the children. If Rock Katsuro was crazy enough to even try to threaten one of Gaara’s own, the traitor would be very, very dead soon afterwards. 

“Gaara?” Lee’s voice came from the other side of the large reception room that led to the Kazekage’s study. 

“Come in. I’m done.”

Lee appeared with a wiggling Aki in one arm and dragging a silent Chiro by the hand.

“I’m going to do some shopping. The fridge is empty. Do you need anything?”

“Yes, I need you to take it easy,” Gaara said with a sharp glance. “Buy what you need today for the children, then make a list of food and household supplies and I’ll have Tetsuyo pick it up-“

“Now, Gaara-“ 

“-as well as some take-out for tonight.”

“-I can’t have your aide do our shopping, that’s not his job-“

“He used to do it before we lived together, he can do it again now.”

Lee would have probably argued some more, but Aki’s fidgeting had turned into fussing and was fast turning into a fit, so Lee just sighed that big patient sigh of his and left. He made it halfway up the stairs before the kid started bawling.

Gaara picked up his papers and went to finish his report at the office.

 

 

Day One – 2 PM

 

Gaara opened the front door, his mind on the Council’s debate. He was jarred out of his thoughts by the sight of a few brightly coloured boxes of various sizes lined haphazardly against one wall of the normally sober and elegant reception room. It looked like things for Aki, since there was a picture of a happily smiling baby on each of them. Gaara absently wondered how they’d gotten the infants to look so cheerful for those pictures; he’d yet to see that expression on Aki’s face.

He was still reflecting on the kind of jutsu one could apply to a baby to make it smile on command, when he froze and retraced his footsteps to take a second and longer look at the kitchen he’d just passed. Lee and Gaara didn't like people coming into their home to clean, so they’d gotten into the habit of taking care of the place themselves, and kept the house as tidy as two busy Shinobi could reasonably be expected to. The dirty dishes in the sink were not a surprise, but streaks of food on the table, a spoon on the floor and a bowl of something pureed forgotten on a chair was unusual even by their standards.

If Lee hadn’t had his hands full, he would certainly have cleaned that up. It looked like two young children were more work and distraction than Gaara had first estimated. Lee had taken a few weeks of leave from his regular duties, to Gaara's relief; he wanted his lover to have the time to relax, rest and get over his run back from Konoha. It had been ages since Lee had taken a break, it would do him a lot of good. But now Gaara was wondering how much rest he was actually going to get out of it.

He dropped his coat off in the study which had been left untouched, fortunately for all involved. Gaara was a creature of habits, his way of creating stability for himself, and all this was stressful enough without having his private retreat turned upside down. 

He stayed in his den for a minute, just centering himself. He had underestimated how disturbing having strangers in the house would be. There had been difficult times a few years ago when Lee had moved in as well, he reminded himself, and he’d gotten used to living with the Jounin quickly enough. Of course, Lee moving in with him had been a milestone in Gaara’s life. The kids were just an imposition.

He headed up the small flight of stairs that led to the bedroom wing. He dropped by the bathroom first, and that’s where things got even stranger. It wasn’t so much the closed garbage bag with what turned out to contain, on inspection, a few diapers. Gaara had been expecting that, and though it wasn’t pleasant, when you’d been on a battlefield full of rotting corpses it barely registered. What intrigued Gaara was the profusion of bottles, small boxes, lotions, powders and tubes that occupied the previously sparse bathroom. The artificial scents pervading the place made him wrinkle his nose. He’d gotten used to the smell of Lee’s two brands of shampoo, but this smelled like flowers, medicine and old ladies. There were two types of sponges next to their scrubbing brush and basin, two new toothbrushes (Gaara hadn’t thought the baby would need one), and a new bar of soap, violent pink, lurking on the edge of the sink.

Gaara used the facilities as if he was walking through a room trapped with explosive tags, then he followed some noises toward the bedroom. 

There was a large ground-level crib near the far wall, near one of the windows. It was half-assembled, a screwdriver and a rack of wooden bars abandoned nearby. There were bags here and there, clothing by the looks of it. A thick wide blanket had been spread out in one corner and Lee was sitting there, watching attentively as Aki crawled towards a large, colorful cube roughly eight inches high. Chiro had been drawing, sprawled on his stomach on the other end of the blanket with his chin propped up in his hand, but he glanced up to follow his brother’s progress.

The scene was strangely domestic in a way that was totally alien to Gaara, and left him feeling uneasy.

“Welcome back,” Lee said, flashing a tired smile his way.

“Hm. You really bought a lot of things.”

He knew those words were a mistake as soon as Lee’s face fell. 

The fact that their Kazekage was in a stable relationship must never cease to surprise the rest of Suna. It certainly surprised Gaara. Lee had found it in his great heart to befriend him and then love him, despite having every reason not to. The relationship had actually lasted, against all expectations, because Lee was not only as kind and loving a person as a professional soldier could be, he was also a good Shinobi; tough enough, quick enough and wise enough to negotiate the dangerous times. There had been a few of those at the start of their relationship. But another contributing factor was that Lee didn’t hide his feelings from Gaara. He’d never bothered with a mask around the Kazekage, even back when Gaara had had no idea what friendship was, or that he’d unknowingly formed one with the Leaf Jounin. 

Gaara had no empathy for others; when he was young, everything had hurt, and he’d hurt everything right back, often fatally. There’d been no middle ground. Now there was a middle ground, and it was one where mere words alone could cause pain to those close to him. Gaara still had little to no idea how to negotiate this new territory, but at least with Lee’s mobile features and expressive eyes, he knew when he’d screwed up. Hopefully one day, he’d learn not to mess up in the first place.

“I don’t mind,” he put in quickly, before Lee could apologize or challenge himself to build a new room to the house for the extra furnishings. “But is all this necessary? For just two children?”

Lee relaxed. He knew Gaara well enough by now to take comments like that at face value and to not look for hidden criticism. When Gaara criticized, he didn’t bother hiding it.

“I didn’t get all that much,” Lee said, giving the bags and boxes and crib a dazed look. “More diapers, milk, a couple of toys...your aide is the one who brought all the rest.”

“Tetsuyo?”

“Yes. He showed up with food- I didn’t even have time to get a list ready. He restocked the refrigerator and brought a few household items, and then the rest was delivered after he left. He must have thought we’d need it. I didn’t tell him to get any of this. I don’t know what half this stuff does, to tell you the truth.”

“Ah.”

Gaara had been busy once he’d arrived at the office. He’d seen his aide between two meetings. The conversation had gone something like this. “Tetsuyo, Lee has brought back his two young cousins with him to live with us for awhile. Drop by and see if he has everything he needs.” And Tetsuyo had said, “Yes sir”. Gaara got along well with Tetsuyo. The man made Gaara’s life easier, and you didn’t need to talk or argue with him for it to happen.

“Of course you'll tell me how much he charged to your office, and I’ll reimburse it all,” Lee was saying, face serious and determined. 

Gaara nodded distantly, making a mental note to warn Tetsuyo that Lee would eventually come to him with that question, and that the aide should halve whatever the price had been. He wasn’t going to try to argue Lee into letting him pay part of it, that would be a waste of time all around, even though the Kazekage had considerably more funds at his disposal than a Jounin.

“I was very thankful for Tetsuyo-san’s help,” Lee added, still looking a bit bewildered by the sudden turn his life had taken. “It gave me some free time to pick up more of Shizune’s prescription, and buy clothes for the boys. I also stopped by the library to see if they had any books.”

“Books on what?”

“Um, taking care of babies.”

“...They have books on that?” Suna’s library consisted of texts on weaponry, history and tactics as far as Gaara knew, as well as some harmless reading material for the civilians and off-duty Shinobi.

“Well, no, apparently they don't,” Lee answered wearily. “But the librarian gave me some advice when she saw Aki,” he added.

“Oh?”

“So did the pharmacist. And the shopkeeper. And the shopkeeper's sister. And a lady at the store.”

“Good advice?”

“A lot of it was contradictory,” Lee admitted. “Oops-“

While they were talking, Aki had been using the large cube to haul himself onto his feet, though he’d immediately slip and sit down again. He didn’t seem to mind the futility of it all at first, but after the fifth attempt, he seemed to lose interest. He sat there in silence, blinking at the cube and the blanket, then he murbled something and made a huffing noise, his small hands rising to his face. 

“Don’t cry,” Lee said, leaning over to pick him up. Aki struggled and shoved at Lee’s chest, his expression all scrunched. 

Gaara's sixth sense twitched. Chiro was staring at him, a strange look, half searching, half fearful. When their eyes met, Chiro quickly looked down at the paper he’d been drawing on. It was covered in squares drawn with a red pencil, each box carefully filled with rigid geometrical shapes, some quite elaborate. As Gaara watched, Chiro put pencil to paper again, but then he dropped it and tugged at his collar. He was dressed in shorts and t-shirt, but he still looked uncomfortably hot. The weather in Suna was quite different from Konoha. 

Aki had calmed down a bit, but he was still struggling. When Lee put him down, the infant crawled back towards the cube. From the look on Lee’s face, this routine had been going on for quite some time. But the Jounin still smiled a bit when Aki reached his toy and started rocking back and forth, propping himself against it to get to his feet. Lee tried to share the smile with Chiro, who wasn’t paying any attention.

Gaara recognized the look on Lee’s face as his lover watched the children. Befuddled, a bit worried, overall determined. And there was the beginning of something else there. Lee had only known the kids for a few days, but they were family. Those were powerful bonds. Kankuro and Temari had been Gaara’s family nine years ago – his only family, since his father’s existence in his life had been way too complicated a matter to label with just one word. But Gaara had always considered them nothing more than a couple of weaker caretakers set on him to stop him from killing people he wasn't supposed to. Family was an intangible concept. Blood was blood, and it didn’t matter where you inherited it from or who you shared it with, or so Gaara had once thought. He’d discovered how wrong he’d been after the Chuunin exam; he was not about to discount the strength of family ties again. Right now, Lee was taking care of his cousins out of duty, but it would take very little for Lee to let them into that great big heart of his as well. 

Gaara had learned to accept the way Lee could befriend and love others. Intellectually, he fully understood that Lee’s love for him would not be diminished by it. Gaara’s instincts on the subject were quite another matter, but he’d learned to curb those particular reflexes sharply. If he started getting jealous of every one of Lee’s acquaintances...that path led to madness, as Gaara knew full well; when it came to going crazy, Gaara was a connoisseur after all. 

Lee gave Aki one last look, then he boosted himself over to the crib. He grabbed a bar and the screwdriver and fitted them together after one last look back at his charges. Lee normally finished anything he started unless someone sat on him. Gaara once again increased his estimate of how distracting an infant could be. Though he couldn’t fault Lee’s superb handling of this strange situation up till now. Lee had no more exposure to children that age than Gaara had. In view of that, he was doing great. Then again, a Jounin was nothing if not highly adaptable, resourceful and able to follow the instructions on a packet of diapers or a crib’s building kit. 

“Can’t he sleep on the bed?” Gaara asked, examining the crib from his spot near the door.

“I wou’ ha’ thought sho,” Lee mumbled before taking a screw out of his mouth. “But this is something else your aide got us, so maybe not. It’s going to be pretty big when I finish it, and it said on the box it’s a play area too. It’s probably safer than leaving him in the tub when I can’t watch him.”

"Won't he be sleeping most of the time?"

“Huh?” Lee looked up from the crib to Gaara, then at Aki.

“I thought babies spent a lot of their time asleep.” 

It was one of the few things Gaara knew about them, because of what Temari had told him about his own birth and first few months. Baby Gaara had always been trying to sleep, like most babies would. But letting him fall asleep might have led to considerable problems. So his caretakers had kept him awake and carefully doled out sleep in amounts that would have killed a child without the chakra support system that was already building in his mind and body. Until one day somebody had screwed up. The unsupervised naptime that had followed had led to the Incident. The Incident had left Gaara unique among other Shinobi in that he’d had a body count before he’d had a birthday. 

...It was probably safe to say he didn’t know anything about normal babies.

The normal baby in this room had managed to half-drape himself over the cube. Gaara knew he was going to fall any second now; the cube was made of light wood or plastic with rounded corners and wasn’t all that stable. Chiro was staring at his brother again, a dull, empty look in his eyes. 

Right on schedule, the cube rocked, Aki fell and started whimpering, then crying as Lee picked him up. It wasn’t that loud a noise, but it had a grating quality to it that made it hard to ignore and that got on Gaara’s nerves after three scant seconds. He turned around and went to work in his study, and only came out a few hours later when the take-out Tetsuyo had ordered arrived.

Supper started out peacefully enough since Aki was nowhere to be seen.

“He was hungry,” Lee explained, a concerned frown on his face. He looked preoccupied, though that didn’t stop him from wolfing his food down. “I think that’s why he was crying so much. I fed him a bit, and then he fell asleep. He’s sleeping now. The crib’s great for that, I can just leave him up there and not worry that he’ll wake up and crawl around or bump into things.”

Chiro was sitting opposite Gaara with the length of the table between them. The kid was eating very slowly and in silence, sitting on a cushion to bring him up to a better height in regards to his plate. He didn’t seem quite as frightened at this point, though he gave Gaara a couple of piercing stares when he thought the Kazekage wasn’t looking. 

Lee finally put down his sticks and his empty plate and heaved a sigh of contentment. Then he looked around hopefully. Gaara wordlessly pushed another box of noodles at him. Whether by luck, intuition or knowledge of their household, Tetsuyo had ordered a good deal more food than would normally be required. None of it would go to waste. Lee needed to build up his stamina again after the effort he’d put in the other day. The Jounin picked up the box and dug in a bit slower this time.

“So, how was the Daimyo’s court?” he asked brightly, once he’d cleared his mouth and swallowed half of his glass of water.

“Busy. Noisy. Irritating.”

“Same as usual, hm?” Lee said with sympathy, scooping up a piece of green onion with his sticks. “Was Temari doing okay?”

“Yes. She seems to be enjoying herself.” Temari had told him she liked the challenge of diplomacy and the cutthroat atmosphere of the court; she certainly seemed to thrive in it. “Many of the courtiers were more scared of her than they were of me,” Gaara added with faint approval and pride in his sibling.

“Wonderful,” Lee said with a small indulgent smile. The two lovers didn’t agree on certain aspects of politics. Lee believed that treating people honorably and leading them to the right path with the Light of Truth and Honesty (and the application of the Fists of Justice if called for) was much better than frightening them into line. He and Gaara occasionally had mild arguments over that, but not tonight. Tonight felt warm and cozy. It was good to talk, to be with each other. Chiro was blissfully quiet on his side of the table. He’d been eating more and more slowly, until he was now drawing squares in his rice and curry with his sticks, staring at his plate.

“How was your mission?” Gaara asked. Lee had been away on a job when Gaara had left for the court three weeks ago.

“Kind of boring. I thought there were supposed to be all sorts of dangerous bandits in the lands west of Wind Country, but we didn’t see any,” Lee said, obviously disappointed. “Then Masamoto-dono – that was the gentleman I was escorting,” Lee explained for Chiro’s benefit. “He was setting up a big commerce line between Sasana and the ports of Migure. He’s very rich, and he was nearly kidnapped last year, so it was an A-rank mission. But I think we traveled a bit faster than expected, so if anybody was following us, they didn’t catch up. When we reached Migure, though, Masamoto-dono decided he’d take a ship back to his home country rather than go across land. He said he needed the rest. He did look pretty exhausted. So did his horse. I guess I did set a rather fast clip, but you’d think a horse would be able to keep up. Since he didn’t need me on the return trip, I came back here direct. I made it back in two days, six hours and thirty-four minutes! Considering that was a distance of-“

Lee’s chair-legs screeched against tiles as he lunged to one side instinctively. His fingers fastened on the plate, catching it a foot off the ground, though some of the food spilled.

Gaara had seen Chiro move since he was facing the child across the length of the table. Chiro had been looking at Lee with a strangely blank expression on his face. Then he’d put down his sticks and stared at the lumps of curry he’d sculpted, and suddenly his fist had shot out and knocked the plate off the table. It might have shattered, but the speed of a falling plate was nothing compared to the speed of Rock Lee.

Chiro was frozen in chair, his hand still raised, his eyes fixed on Lee’s chest, and he looked-...he looked like he was waiting for something.

Lee set the plate on the table with a click that sounded louder than it should in the silent kitchen. He gave Gaara a puzzled look, but Gaara was the last person to tell Lee how to react.

“Chiro...That...Don’t do that again. Was there something wrong with the food?” Lee asked, obviously at a loss and fishing.

Chiro’s wide eyes slowly lifted to Lee’s face.

“Why did you do that?” Lee asked, more severely. 

“...don’t know...” The child did not look evasive. He was still staring at Lee as if he didn’t know who this man was. His face was colorless, his eyes seemed too big in it.

Lee looked at him, obviously trying to figure out how to react, and then he stood up. 

“Chiro, apologize to Gaara,” he said, voice more coaxing than stern. “And then we’ll put you to bed. It’s been a long day, and you didn’t sleep well last night. Everything will look a lot better in the morning. A good night’s sleep is the remedy of Youth! That’s what my teacher always told me.”

Instead of looking relieved that he was getting off so lightly, Chiro stared at him as if Lee had slapped him. Then he turned the stare on Gaara. Gaara stared right back, not knowing what the child expected of him and not really caring. He didn’t give a damn about the food or an apology, but he knew Lee would insist on it.

“Chiro,” Lee said, prompting him. The child blinked, the brown eyes dropped to the edge of the table and he whispered ‘Sorry’ as if he didn’t know what the word meant but had been told to parrot it. He did not look at all rebellious. He didn’t look apologetic either. He looked...shut, was the best way Gaara could describe it.

“Good. Come on.” Lee picked him up effortlessly. “I’ll come back down and clean up in a minute, Gaara. I’m sorry about this, he’s still upset about- you know. And tired too.”

Gaara wouldn’t be surprised if the boy were upset. In fact he was surprised the boy wasn’t completely freaked out. This time last Tuesday, the child had had a home and a loving family. Now his parents were gone and all he had was a cousin he’d never seen before, taking him to live in another village with the character from a horror story. Gaara, who had been rather notorious for externalizing his feelings at that age, would have broken a lot more than plates in Chiro’s situation.

But the kid hadn't seemed angry, or hurt, or particularly offended by take-out curry. He didn’t look like he was seeking attention either. Once he had it, he'd looked scared. But also expectant. Gaara frowned down at his empty bowl. He could read other people’s expressions as well as any Shinobi; the problem was understanding what he saw and anticipating their reactions when their inner world was so different than his own.

It probably didn't matter. According to Lee, the kid would be more rational in the morning. Gaara got up and started putting things away in the fridge, leaving the mess on the floor for Lee as requested. The menial tasks helped him put the children and their behavior out of his mind.


	5. Day Two - 6AM

Day Two - 6AM

 

Gaara looked up from a complicated diagram on interrelated heraldry. Upstairs, Aki had started crying again. It was shortly after six in the morning. The kid was indefatigable. 

The baby had cried a good portion of the night, starting shortly after eleven o'clock. He'd stopped and then picked it up again like a miniature warning siren going off at random intervals. Gaara had felt his patience wearing thin after a scant two hours, so he'd slipped out as discreetly as he could and went to nap in his office. It wasn’t as restful as it should have been; he didn’t have Lee there with him, he just had one of Taidaka’s men trying to be discreet on the roof of the opposite building. Gaara had grimly reminded himself that all this was necessary and that he would get used to it. 

It seemed he was getting used to it, at that. He'd felt better after an hour’s sleep, and Aki had been quiet for almost two hours after Gaara had returned. When he started crying again, it barely disturbed the Kazekage, who continued to work at his desk with determination. Gaara even felt a faint satisfaction that he was getting inured to the fuss so quickly. Maybe this meant he was making progress in acquiring further human conditioning. 

He had just plunged back into his reading, ignoring the noises from the bedroom and bathroom, when he heard Lee's feet clattering down the stairs. His lover was calling his name. Gaara stuck a bookmark in the tome on Rules of Etiquette that Temari was making him read, and went to see what this new fuss was about. 

Lee was in the reception room near the front door, putting on a sandal one-handed. Aki was hanging from the other arm.

"I have to go to the clinic," Lee said, speaking quickly when Gaara appeared at the door to his study. "Aki’s not well."

Gaara scrutinized the baby. The early-morning light wasn’t too good in the grand reception room that led to their front entrance, but the kid didn’t appear to be badly ill. Maybe a bit paler than when Gaara first saw him.

"He’s not stopped crying, he’s got the runs, he’s dehydrated and he’s hunched over as if his stomach hurts," Lee efficiently reported like the Shinobi he was, as he moved on to the next sandal. "Chiro, put on your shoes."

Chiro was sitting on the first step of the stairs, looking sleepy, rumpled and uncooperative.

"I don’t want to go," he muttered.

"Chiro, please-" Lee straightened up. "Your brother’s not feeling well. We have to take care of him. Okay? Put on your shoes."

"I don’t want to go." Chiro didn’t sound particularly fussy. He’d repeated the words like an automaton, his voice a soft drone. He had that brittle look about him again. It reminded Gaara of the way Chiro had tossed the plate off the table last night.

"We don’t have a choice." Lee kicked off his sandals again. Gaara had told him a number of times that he didn’t mind if Lee walked around in the house in his shoes; they were Shinobi after all, not proud homeowners bound by traditions. But Lee had been raised to be extremely respectful of the houses he’d lived in like a tolerated guest. Gaara had the morbid certainty that if they were ever attacked here, Lee would insist that the assailants remove their footwear first. Since Lee would probably have to render them unconscious to get them to listen and comply, Gaara didn’t worry about that foible too much.

The Jounin walked over to the stairs and tried to pull the recalcitrant child to his feet. Chiro didn’t fight it, but he moved like putty. It looked like Lee was going to have to carry them both. 

"Come on, Chiro. We have to go get your brother looked at, he’s-"

"He can stay here." 

Lee blinked repeatedly at Gaara. "W-what?" He really looked tired and stressed-out.

"He can stay here," Gaara repeated. "I’ll be working in my study, I can watch him."

"But-but I can’t ask you to-"

Gaara’s eyes narrowed. "I’ll make sure he doesn’t come to any harm."

"I was thinking about the inconvenience to you," Lee sighed. He glanced down at Chiro, who was hanging from his hand like a sack, then up at Gaara again. "Are you sure you don’t mind?"

Chiro would be the one who would mind, but if he stayed fearfully hidden in a small corner then they’d both have a quiet day, and so would Lee, within reason. Remembering that plate incident, Gaara had a feeling that the child would be problematic. Lee didn’t need that on top of his worries for Aki. Gaara hadn’t wanted to find himself in this situation, but keeping the child out of trouble for a few hours was something even he should be able to do, for all he lacked most human reflexes besides the most basic. As for Chiro, maybe a morning locked in the house with Gaara of the Desert would persuade the little snot that quietly putting up with Lee and his brother in the future was infinitely better.

Aki was making noises; not crying exactly, but a hiccupy whining sound that ended in sniffles. He had snot, tears and slobber all over his face. Even to Gaara’s ears he sounded exhausted, and he wasn’t wiggling with the same energy today. 

"Lee, when you get to the clinic, talk to Doctor Masaki directly."

"Okay!" Lee replied seriously as if he’d just received an A-rank mission. "I’ll try to be back as soon as I can."

"Take the time you need."

"Are you _sure_ you don’t mind-"

"Go."

Lee left, though not before dragging Chiro aside and talking to him in a stern whisper for a few minutes. Chiro looked at him blankly, then gazed at Gaara. He looked wary, but no longer terrified. After living in the same house for over twenty-four hours now and not getting eaten or bled dry, Chiro must have realized that the danger wasn't acute.

Then the front door shut with its usual healthy and enthusiastic thump - laden with perhaps a touch of anxiety this time- as Lee belted away towards the clinic.

Gaara and Chiro stared at each other in the sudden silence. 

"I’m working in my study. Go and get what you need from the bedroom and take it down there," Gaara finally ordered, hooking a thumb over his shoulder towards his den.

Chiro didn’t respond, but he turned on his heels and trotted up the stairs, hopefully to comply. Gaara dropped by the kitchen to fill a glass of water and grab some ration bars for the kid’s breakfast and for himself, and then he went back to his desk, leaving the curtain to the study partially pulled back.

Chiro came in slowly. He only had the thick pad of paper and the red pencil with him. 

"You can sit over there," Gaara told him, pointing to the window seat. It was a pleasant little spot. Solid flat cushions made it comfortable, it was out of the direct sunshine with a nice view of the stone garden in the courtyard and it was quite a good distance away from anything dangerous or frightening such as Gaara, the gourd or the weapon’s rack. It should do until Lee got back. Gaara had put the glass of water and the rations on the sill.

Chiro stared at the window seat as if he thought it was a trap. He finally crossed over to the patch of morning light and hoisted himself onto the cushions. He sat there stiffly, notepad and pencil clutched to his chest as he stared about the room. His gaze flinched away from Gaara, but rested on the gourd for awhile.

Gaara didn’t think the kid looked comfortable, but that was Chiro’s own fault. Should have gone with Lee. Gaara put aside the book of etiquette and grabbed the next stack of mission reports covering the past three weeks. This was the downside of having missions away from Suna, there was always so much paperwork backed up when he returned.

Chiro’s presence was only a minor irritant. The kid was quiet and still. The only time he moved was to put down the notepad, twist around and grab the glass of water with both hands. He drank a bit noisily, but still without comment. He ignored the ration bar. Gaara felt no need for concern. The kid wouldn’t collapse from inanition in the time it would take for Lee to get back and feed him.

He could feel Chiro’s eyes on him now that he was bent over his work, but as long as the kid didn’t freak out, let him stare.

He was halfway through the second report when Chiro finally moved. Gaara glanced up automatically, to see Chiro pull the two cushions from the window seat and put them on the floor. The seat was a thick piece of wood inserted into the sides of two large bookcases framing the window. The bench was wide enough to support two people sitting side by side, and left a sizable space beneath it. Chiro put the cushions down on the floor inside the nook, sitting on one and leaving the other on the ground unattended. He brought the notepad up to his face and started drawing, despite the way the pencil bent the wad of paper without proper support.

Gaara turned back to his own work. The next hour was blissfully quiet, with only his pen and the pencil making any noise. Gaara could feel eyes on him occasionally, but the child didn’t speak to him.

The room got warmer. A tepid breeze drifted over the village of sand and wind, doing nothing to cool it. The faint gust brought to Gaara’s ears the clack-clack of the wooden clappers signalling the changing of the guard on the northern rampart. Gaara’s eyes flicked towards the clock on the wall, though that noise and his instincts were much better timekeepers. Eight o’clock, and all was well.

As if the distant noise had been a signal, Chiro stood up and took two steps towards Gaara.

"I need to go to the bathroom," he said, almost in a whisper.

"Go then," Gaara grunted, scribbling a note for Tetsuyo on the report he was reading.

There was a pause from near the window. When Gaara glanced at him, Chiro was staring back, biting his bottom lip.

"You know where it is," said Gaara.

Chiro looked at him as if that hadn’t been the point, but when Gaara didn’t add anything or do anything other than stare at him, unblinking, the boy turned towards the door and walked out.

Gaara tracked him with his senses as the child climbed the stairs, heading in the right direction. Five minutes later, the small footsteps were on their way back, and there had been no alarming sounds from the bathroom. No flush either. Gaara, who saved water as religiously as his fellow villagers, didn’t particularly care, though Lee probably would when he got back. 

Chiro appeared at the study entrance and walked back over to the nook beneath the window. But he didn’t crawl back under the wooden seat. He stood beside it, and Gaara could feel himself under observation once more.

He didn’t pay it any mind, until the child took a few steps in his direction. 

"Are you really him?"

Gaara turned his head to look at the boy. 

"Gaara of the Desert?" Chiro prompted. His voice was lower, as if the words were something dangerous he was handling.

"Yes."

"...Really?" Apparently seeing his bogeyman as a flesh-and-blood creature was still hard to accept for the child. 

"Yes."

Another long stare.

"Do you really kill people?"

"Yes. When I need to."

Chiro appeared to be impressed with that answer. He stared at Gaara for a few more minutes.

"Lee says you don’t drink blood," he finally said

"I don’t."

The child nibbled at a fingernail and frowned. Gaara had the feeling his answer had somehow fallen short of expectations.

"They say you do."

"They’re wrong."

"But they _say_ you _do_ ," Chiro muttered as if that was an obvious and irrefutable argument.

Maybe it had been better when the kid was scared of him.

"I don’t."

Gaara picked up the next report. Team thirteen. A-rank? Hadn’t their cell-leader been injured last month near the border? What were they doing taking A-rank missions?

The kid was still staring at him, and it was nibbling at his concentration. One look at Chiro’s pinched face and eyes told Gaara that the child didn’t believe him, though he seemed less upset about Gaara being a bloodsucking demon and more by the fact that he was refusing to own up to it. Which even Gaara found a bit strange.

"When I was a bit older than you are now, I believed that the Sand that protected me wanted blood, and I made sure it soaked up a lot of it. Maybe that is what you heard about," Gaara suggested at length. 

Chiro blinked and then his eyes went very wide. There was still some fear in his demeanor, but a lot less than yesterday. Yet this reaction didn't feel like bravery, either. Gaara didn’t know how to define it. An absence of something that should be there, perhaps. A normal human should have been repulsed at least.

"You give blood to the sand," Chiro breathed.

"No. I used to, but I’ve stopped. It served no purpose. It was just something I believed when I was a child." Along with some very confused transference between the chakra-rich protective Sand and his dead mother. He’d been a proper little psychopath by the time his age reached double digits. Gaara felt some past memory brush him like cold, dead fingers. He shook the feeling away with annoyance.

The brown eyes were now fixed on him with something like fascination. 

"Do you kill a lot of people?"

"These days, I try diplomacy first," Gaara stated, flipping through the report trying to find the Injuries section.

It was as if Chiro hadn’t even heard what he’d said. Maybe he didn’t know what ‘diplomacy’ meant, but he didn’t ask for clarification. It was as if Gaara’s answer had not been understood or had not fitted into his expectations and as a result had simply been ignored. 

"Did you kill anybody yesterday?" he asked intently instead, taking a few more steps towards Gaara. He was now only seven feet away.

Gaara looked down at him again slowly. "No," he finally answered.

"The day before yesterday?"

"No."

The small face scrunched up in concentration. "The day before...before yester-"

"I haven’t killed anybody yet this month," Gaara said with a trickle of hard, uncaring irony. "I was forced to defend myself and my troops during a mission back in March, so I’ve killed two people so far this year and injured two others."

"Did they fight you?" Before Gaara could answer- "Did you kill a lot of other people? How many?"

That gave Gaara pause.

"I don’t know."

Chiro blinked, and then he looked...Gaara struggled to analyze that expression, and decided that Chiro looked hurt. That brittleness was back in his eyes, his face. That was when Gaara realized that during his interrogation, the boy had looked intent and... _present_ , in a way he hadn’t since Gaara had scared him the day he’d come home.

Gaara didn’t have to answer to the child, but something, the need in that look, caused his instincts to trigger and he spoke before the thin veneer of normalcy Gaara had diffidently cultivated could wonder if this was appropriate information for a four-year-old.

"By the time I was your age, I’d killed one person, somewhat accidentally. At twelve, my body count was one hundred and eighteen, though I was too young at the start to confirm all of the kills. I assumed that if you hit them hard enough, they died. Most of them did. When I was older I stopped counting, and I tried to stop killing as well. But some people don’t always leave me that choice. Does that answer your question?"

Chiro stared at him in amazement as Gaara’s uncaring monotone listed a few highlights of his blood-soaked career. There was something almost hungry in the way Chiro accepted that answer. That hollow look was gone. He was silent for a minute, as if thinking that over. Gaara, who could read fear after having provoked it his entire life, thought the boy was taking the news remarkably fearlessly. Which should be a good thing, yet Gaara’s vague sense of Wrong stirred.

Chiro’s mouth opened as if he was about to ask another question, but suddenly his eyes flinched away from Gaara and darted around the room. Small white teeth, a bit crooked, nibbled at his lower lip as he hesitated. Then his gaze fastened on the gourd.

"Is that the jar you keep the blood in?"

"I don’t do anything with blood. And it’s a gourd, not a jar."

That earned him a blank stare.

"They have different shapes," Gaara said, after having to think about it for a second. He supposed shape would be the defining difference. He’d never had to explain that before. He never had to explain anything, the people of Suna already knew all this and rarely questioned him.

Chiro’s eyes were fastened once more on the gourd. He appeared to be concentrating on the shape. "Why?"

Why? Why what? Gaara frowned, annoyed at some indefinable lack of logic in the child’s questions and whole attitude. He was tempted to simply not answer, but if Chiro gave him that long silent look again, he’d be answering sooner or later anyway just to get rid of the annoyance and return to his work.

"It’s made of Sand," he answered brusquely, taking a stab at guessing what that ‘why’ was about. "It has the shape I tell it to. It makes it easier to carry with that bend in the middle of it. It allows me to fit a harness to it."

Chiro took a few steps towards the gourd, not paying Gaara’s answer any heed. 

"What is that?"

"What?"

"That." The boy pointed to the tags pasted onto the sand. His gesture was cautious, as if it were a savage animal at the end of a leash of unknown length.

"Warnings and seals."

Chiro took a few more steps. He was now closer than some adults would dare to go if Gaara wasn’t carrying it. Gaara hooked an arm over the back of his chair and turned to keep an eye on the child. The movement made Chiro look back at him quickly, but then the boy returned to examining the gourd. 

"It’s just sand," Gaara said, and realized that this was the first time he’d ever referred to it as ‘just’ anything. "No blood," he clarified.

Chiro didn’t seem to be listening to him.

Then he turned and gave Gaara a drill-like stare. Once more he seemed to be on the verge of asking a question. But he spun around and bolted away instead. He burst out of the study, galloped up the stairs, scrabbled at the bedroom door before sliding it open. Then sudden silence.

Gaara stared at the swaying curtain. Chiro’s reaction had caught him completely offguard, though in hindsight that could have been his usual lack of human empathy and understanding. All those details might have been a bit unnerving, though surely the truth was better than those stupid scare stories the child had heard before.

He hesitated, but decided that he wanted Chiro here where he could watch him. He’d promised Lee that no harm would come to the boy. If Chiro grew fretful at the sight of the gourd, Gaara could put the thing outside the room.

Chiro was sitting against the wall in a corner with his brother’s plastic cube in his hands. When Gaara appeared in the doorway he looked up quickly with an inward-turned expression, like the one he’d had last night at dinner. It was more obvious now that Gaara had seen him somewhat animated and intent before.

"Did I frighten you?" Gaara asked him directly, since that was the only reason for Chiro’s flight he could think of. Though the kid was hardly a picture of abject dread at the moment.

That question earned him a stare, and then a shake of the head. He looked a lot like Lee when he did that.

"I won’t harm you. Come back down to the study. You can take that if you want." 

Chiro put down the cube, stood up and walked towards the door. Gaara moved out of the way, but the child showed no particular fear of him or of his close presence. Gaara wondered if this would all make sense if he had a better understanding of human nature in general and children in particular, but at this point he did not feel sufficiently interested to find out, as long as Chiro stayed where he was supposed to and shut up.

Chiro was ensconced under the window seat once more and drawing in the pad with the red pencil. He did not ask any more questions. He only moved again to go to the bathroom, this time without asking. While he was gone, Gaara noted that the pencil was now well blunted, but it didn’t seem to matter. Squares marched and tumbled down the paper of the notebook in different sizes, cross-hatched and boxed in, overwritten, squeezed into corners and savagely scratched out. Chiro hadn’t turned the page, even though the rest of the notebook was available.

The rest of the morning was quiet, yet Gaara felt unaccountably relieved when Lee showed up just before noon.

He gave his lover an interrogative glance as Lee pushed back the study's curtain. Lee looked a bit better, and so did Aki for that matter, though the baby was still fussing and making burbling noises that were almost words, the way a tadpole was almost a frog. There was a band-aid in the crook of his chubby arm.

"He should be fine," Lee said, in answer to Gaara's look. "But Doctor Masaki said it was good I brought him in. They put him under saline perfusion for a couple of hours and ran some blood tests to be on the safe side."

Probably more than they’d have done if it hadn’t been the Kazekage’s lover who’d turned up with a somewhat sick child. Gaara didn’t give it a second thought. Temari occasionally hinted that a good leader should keep his private life and his work separate, but Gaara had never understood why; they were both his life, they were both important, and if one could make the other easier, all the better.

"He said it’s a tummy bug, and I wasn’t giving him enough to drink as well. Add to that the change of climate and the fatigue of the journey. I’m also to stop giving them Shizune’s medication. The doctor said they have to get used to sleeping normally again. He gave me some mild herbal extract to add to Aki’s juice, and exact instructions," Lee reported. He looked a whole lot more confident now. The doctor must have been reassuring, Gaara reflected with a touch of gratitude towards the dour medi-nin. 

"Ah, Chiro." Lee had spotted his cousin. "Did you behave yourself? He didn’t disturb you, did he?" he added, glancing at Gaara.

"He was quiet," Gaara answered, which was only the truth. 

"Good! Chiro, do you want some lunch?"

Chiro had been looking at Lee as if he’d never seen him before - which was strange, and not the first time it had happened, now that Gaara reflected on it. But at the word ‘lunch’ he leaped to his feet and ran towards the door, looking fairly lively all of a sudden. Lee followed Chiro’s noisy progress to the kitchen with a pleased look on his face, while Aki twisted around and mumbled excitedly after his brother. 

"Thanks," Lee said to Gaara, eyes warm. "Thank you so much. Looks like it went well! Tell you what, let me get the kids fed, and maybe they’ll sleep or play, and we can have lunch together."

Gaara nodded and got back to work, shaking off the faint unease Chiro’s earlier questions had left him with.


	6. Day Three - 3AM

Day Three - 3AM

 

The previous day had ended quietly enough. Lee had kept the children amused that afternoon, or whatever he did to make sure they were somewhat quiet. He'd fed them, leaving some food to warm for Gaara, and the three Rocks had all gone to bed early. 

The night wasn't anywhere as peaceful. Aki was still not well, but he was now feeling strong enough to let that fact be known at the top of his lungs. It was well past two in the morning before the irregular noises stopped. Gaara had managed to get a little work done when a scream echoed from the first floor. 

He was up the stairs the next second, the strap of the gourd snatched up in his hand, when he heard Lee going ‘shhhh'. 

"Nightmare," Lee said without looking up when Gaara slid the door open. 

The spare bedroom had not been set up for the children, and Gaara had realized at some point in the past forty-eight hours that it probably never would be as long as they stayed here. Chiro was sleeping in Gaara's spot in the large bed, while Aki's crib and play area lurked like the cage of a small, wild animal near the far window. 

Chiro was sitting up in bed, clutching Lee's arm, eyes wide, blind and absolutely terrorized. Gaara turned on his heels and left. He was hardly qualified to calm down a frightened child. Lee could handle it. He'd handled a lot worse than that when he and Gaara had gotten together, and at least Chiro wouldn't be able to kill him in a moment of temporary insanity.

Since it looked like the rest of the night was going to be just as noisy - Chiro's shriek having woken up Aki again - Gaara went to his office. He'd gotten out of the habit of working there. He preferred his study now, with nobody but Lee coming near him. People knew where to find him in case of emergency, and otherwise they waited until he showed up in the admin building once or twice a day to bother him with less important details. But he had a couple of meetings in the morning and he had to prepare for them, so his office would have to do. Gaara stopped on his way to get the patient Tetsuyo out of bed and went to work with something like relief.

A few hours later, he was heading back home for lunch along the ninja highway, Suna's series of flat roofs and ledges. His mind was turning over some of the Council's international policies he needed to ratify, when his senses twitched. At the same time a hail stopped him in his tracks.

"Sir!"

Gaara spun around, poised on the edge of a roof, a few blocks away from home. The hail had come from the street below. In a small, quiet alleyway off the main road, two ANBU stood on either side of Chiro.

Gaara was at their side in an instant. One of the Shinobi was Taidaka, mask covering his scarred features. The other one Gaara recognized by her demeanour and chakra as one of the extra ANBU Taidaka had assigned to guarding the Kazekage's house and office.

"Where's Lee?" Gaara asked sharply. In the gourd, the Sand hissed and roiled in alarm.

"Safe," Taidaka immediately answered. "Lee-san's taking a nap back at your residence. The boy slipped out the front door. He seemed to be heading out into the village at random. We were walking him back to your residence when we saw you, sir."

They were walking him back...five streets away from the house? Gaara frowned. The guard must have seen Chiro leave, and Gaara knew why she had let him get this far. Because she - and Taidaka, once warned - would have wanted to see where Chiro was going and who might contact him. The Kazekage appreciated having this information, but on a personal level Gaara wasn't sure he liked having his lover's four-year old cousin used as potential bait.

He turned the frown on Chiro, standing hunched and silent between two dangerous masked killers. Chiro stared back at Gaara's knees. He did not look afraid. He did not look like anything. For a moment Gaara thought Taidaka had slapped some kind of Genjutsu on the boy, but then the brown eyes traveled up Gaara's chest to his face. Chiro stared at him as if his whole being was waiting for something. Something final. 

"I'll take him back," Gaara said, motioning Chiro to follow him. 

The two Sand Shinobi nodded and disappeared in a faint wash of displaced air, making Chiro start.

"Move. Quickly," Gaara ordered the boy. He was angry in that cold, controlled way of his. What had the boy been thinking? If Lee woke up to find his cousin gone, he would be out of his mind with worry. Besides, Sunagakure was not a playground for someone who didn't know where the jutsu training range and weapon depots were. 

Chiro followed the Kazekage at a few paces. Gaara could feel the boy's stare drill him between the shoulder blades, but Chiro made no attempt to apologize, explain, protest or bolt again. Gaara cut through the courtyard and the rock garden, heading towards the front door. Hopefully Lee was still sleeping. These damned children were giving the Jounin very short, choppy nights at a time he should be recuperating from the arduous run that had brought them here. 

Behind him, Chiro's footstep's stopped. Gaara glanced back, eyes narrowed in warning. The child did not run away, but he did not move either. He was staring at Gaara's knees once more, small fists clenched at his side.

"You kill people," Chiro suddenly said.

"Is that why you ran away? I told you I won't harm you." Even Gaara could tell that his cold, emotionless tone didn't make that sound like much of a reassurance, but he was too irritated to care. He motioned abruptly to the child and moved towards the door.

"Could you kill anybody in the world?"

Don't tempt me, Gaara thought, but didn't say it. He didn't want to have to start chasing after a frightened child-

"Could you kill Lee?"

Gaara stopped. He turned around slowly. 

Chiro watched him, intent, waiting like a trap for the answer. He'd pressed his fist against his mouth, but otherwise he didn't move. 

Gaara slowly crossed his arms over his chest. He didn't think to ask why. His instincts had stirred. Gaara's nature took over, the thin veneer of normalcy crumbling. 

"Yes. I could. He's strong, it would be hard, but I could. If I wanted to."

He was tracking the child's reaction. Chiro's eyes widened immeasurably, until the brown of the pupil was surrounded by white. He was staring at Gaara's chest now. His legs and left arm were stiff as if he was about to have some kind of fit, and he appeared to be biting his knuckles.

"Is he coming back?" Chiro finally choked out around his fist, as if the question had been forced from him by some pressure inside too great to resist.

Gaara frowned. The boy had heard Taidaka say that Lee was asleep-...

Ah. Those darker instincts stirred, and finally Gaara _knew_. 

"You mean your father."

Chiro's entire body flinched, but nothing in his expression changed.

"I don't know. Probably not. Even if he came back, you wouldn't see him."

In the silence of the courtyard baking beneath the late morning sun, the only sound was the quick rasp of Chiro's breathing. 

"Was he the one who hurt mommy?" Chiro finally asked, voice high and tight.

The question elicited no surprise. Chiro's attitude was starting to make a bone-chilling sense. Gaara didn't wonder how Chiro had learned the full truth, when Lee believed the boy to be blissfully ignorant of the details of the murder; it didn't really matter.

"Yes. He did." 

Chiro's second hand went up to grip his wrist, arms locked together as if to ward a blow.

"Your mother is dead. Your father is responsible. He's gone and he's not coming back."

Chiro jerked his hands away from his face. "You're lying." The words were immediate, said on a gasp, yet the child had been looking for the very answer he was now denying.

"No."

But the boy wasn't listening. His breathing went ragged and his eyes blind, his face twisting into an expression that was hateful and much too old for his four-and-a-half years of age. 

" _You're lying!_ "

Chiro spun, grabbed a stone from the rockery's border and hurled it at Gaara with all his strength.

Gaara could have easily dodged it, or caught it with barely a flick of the wrist. But he didn't. The Sand hissed through the air like a dagger sliding from the sheath, lethally graceful as it formed an arc over Gaara, the rock embedding in it with a dull thud.

Chiro froze, staring at him, eyes huge, mouth hanging open in amazement and fear. This was the first time he'd seen the Sand.

"No. I think we've established that I do not lie." 

Chiro didn't seem to believe his own accusations. Gaara had truthfully answered every single probing question Chiro had thrown at him, even the raw and ugly ones no other adult would have thought to answer. The boy must have realized over the past two days that Gaara was a monster who didn't care enough about him to lie.

Gaara took a step forwards. Chiro jerked like a fish on the line and stumbled back, falling into the rockery. He didn't seem to notice the stones tearing at his bare legs and shorts. He stared at Gaara walking towards him and he didn't try to run.

Gaara crouched before the boy so their faces were more of a level. That hollow, empty look was back, but Gaara was not going to let the boy run away from this. Not this time. Because this...Gaara _knew_ this. In the end, it could not be escaped. He grabbed Chiro's chin, forcing the child to make eye contact, and he spoke very slowly and clearly. 

"Your mother's dead. Your father's a traitor."

This time there was no sign the boy had heard, the brown eyes met Gaara's blindly as if he was staring at an empty landscape. But Gaara knew how to break through the silence in Chiro's head. 

"I know what he did to her. And I know what that feels like. My father killed my mother too."

He waited, watching as those words wound their way to where they had to go. He felt the flinch through his fingers when they did. Chiro was staring at him, trembling like a line under high tension. 

"It's all right to hate him for it. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. But it won't change anything. His choices were his own, they were not your fault and you had no share in them. Your choices start now. If you go on behaving this way, you'll lose what little you still have."

Chiro stared at him without comprehension, so Gaara repeated the same harsh words again. He would have done so a third time and until the child had fully understood him, but as he opened his mouth, Chiro jerked away and went scrambling backwards over the rockery. Gaara leaned forward, plucked him up and sat him back on the gravel path, not wanting the child to injure himself.

Chiro sat there like a broken doll, his breathing high, fast and shallow, his face slowly twisting. Gaara waited. He couldn't have said for what, but when Chiro started screaming, he wasn't surprised. 

Chiro shrieked like he had last night, one long, high wail, but this was no nightmare he could wake from. Gaara looked down at him with a faint stir of cold recognition. Then he glanced around. The child had faced his demons, or whatever Gaara had incarnated for him. Now he needed- 

As if conjured by his thoughts, the front door slammed open and Lee tumbled out. It looked like he'd gone from fast asleep to battle-ready in about a second. He had a kunai in one hand, which automatically disappeared when Gaara made an all-safe gesture. Lee was at the child's side the next moment.

"Chiro?! What-"

He'd barely touched the boy's shoulder when the scream broke, and turned into a good old-fashioned and much more healthy bawl. Lee tried to check Chiro over, only to find his charge stuck to his arm like a limpet, small fists knotting in his uniform, snot and tears smearing all over Lee's opened flak jacket.

"Is he injured?" Lee asked, a Shinobi's question. His free hand was feeling up and down Chiro's limbs and head, checking for fractures.

"No."

Lee looked like he wanted to ask another question, but Chiro's crying was distracting. The Jounin picked the boy up and headed towards the door. Gaara followed him as his lover carried the bawling child upstairs, since he didn't think Chiro would even notice his presence in his current state. The little face was visible over Lee's shoulder, all red and twisted, the eyebrows making it a strange parody of Lee's. Gaara frowned.

"Your cousin Katsuro. Did you two look a lot alike?"

Lee half-turned as he walked to give Gaara an incredulous stare at the bizarre question. 

"Does he look like you?" Gaara insisted. "Eyebrows, face, eyes-"

"Yes, a bit I guess," Lee threw hurriedly over his shoulder, sliding open the bedroom door. "He wore his hair long last time I saw him, and his face was a bit different, but yes, I guess we look alike."

‘Could you kill Lee?' Or had that really been, ‘Could you kill my father?' Chiro's attitude towards Lee since the start had seemed to vacillate between treating him like a distant cousin who'd taken him in and could be somewhat trusted, and an apparition Chiro didn't know how to react to. If Lee looked like the boy's father, maybe that explained it, but it was mere speculation. When something was this broken, it was hard to make any sense of the pieces.

"Here, Chiro," Lee murmured, laying the sobbing child on the bed. "Are you sure he's not injured?" he added with a worried glance back at Gaara.

"Certain."

"What happened? What were you two doing outside?"

"He got out while you were sleeping. One of the guards caught him. ANBU."

"Damn it. I put him down for a nap, and I sort of fell asleep too. I should have locked the door...Chiro. Shhh. You shouldn't leave like that...Did the man in the mask frighten you?" Chiro was crying into the pillow and probably didn't even hear him. Aki, who'd been sleeping in his crib, started crying too, apparently unwilling to be left out.

"This is the first time I've seen him cry," Lee whispered, sounding confused as he patted Chiro on the shoulder. "He didn't even cry when they buried- when he had to say goodbye to his mom. I don't understand, what-"

"Don't worry about it," Gaara said softly. "Crying like that means there's still something left. He'll be the better for it."

Lee gave him a fleetingly puzzled glance, but he didn't ask any questions. Gaara suspected that Lee had filed that remark under the heading ‘my boyfriend is being weird again, figure it out later if that's even possible', something Lee had unconsciously gotten used to over the years. The Jounin concentrated on soothing the boy, who seemed to cry all the harder and clutch at the pillow, at Lee, at anything that gave him some solidity.

At this point Aki was sitting in his crib and bawling too, so Lee had more to worry about than wonder what had happened exactly. Gaara had no intention of telling him. Gaara rarely lied; in fact his siblings and his lover often complained, half indulgent and half exasperated, about his brutal honesty. But being honest was far from the same as being open. He'd spent too many years alone, he would never be able to trust and share that easily. And there were things he'd never shared, not even with Lee. 

The words that had broken Chiro had come from those hidden currents in Gaara's life. If he tried to explain to Lee why it had been necessary to wound the child like that, he would have to talk about things in his past he did not care to discuss, and that Lee would not, at a fundamental level, truly understand. Ironically, his small cousin would. In some aspects the child was a bit closer to what Gaara had once been than Lee would care to learn. It would just worry him, and he had more than enough to deal with caring for Aki. 

Gaara hadn't liked the words. In fact he hated that he'd had to do that. But he was not going to lie and tell the kid everything was fine when even Chiro obviously knew they were not. Yashamaru had done that to Gaara: lied for years and let the young boy believe he was loved, let him hope, and then when the man had tried to kill him...Gaara would not do that to this boy in turn, feed him falsehoods and platitudes, because when the truth finally caught up, as it always did, it would destroy him. 

Gaara did not know what Chiro had learned about his mother's murder exactly, but the boy had heard enough to know his father was involved and it had eaten him inside. He'd been looking for the truth. Fearing it too. Best he know the full extent of it, however much it hurt. Now Chiro would turn towards Lee, who hadn't hurt him. The boy still had a chance to make it, in Gaara's opinion. Chiro had gotten off relatively easy after all. Gaara's cut had run much deeper; his father had been the one to sacrifice his mother for some imagined greater good, but Gaara had been the reason behind her death as well as her accidental executioner. By contrast, Chiro was entirely blameless. He wasn't possessed, he wasn't a monster, he wasn't feared and despised and above all...

Lee was holding Chiro, whispering something about Shinobi not crying, but it was obvious by his tone he didn't mean it, was barely listening to his own words; the gentle murmur was what counted. Chiro's fit of hysterical crying was lessening, turning to big, tired sobs in Lee's strong arms...

...Above all, Chiro was loved. He still had a chance.

Gaara turned away, since he no longer had any part in this. Well, not directly, he reminded himself, glancing at Aki who hiccupped and abruptly stopped his whining when he caught Gaara's gaze on him. Gaara had never had any part in this, except to make sure Lee was safe, healthy and happy, and for that to happen, something really had to be done with these children.

He walked down the stairs, unslinging the gourd from his shoulder with a weary gesture. It wasn't even noon yet. ‘Kids make life complicated'? What an understatement. Gaara wondered what kind of leave his Shinobi got when they bore children and if it would be financially possible for the village to extend it. Or better yet, hire a bunch of- of specialist carers and build a really big...crèche or whatever they called it in the cities...

He propped the gourd against the desk, walked to the study window and flicked his fingers in a signal. He stayed at the window, motionless, until Taidaka had appeared in front of him, still masked. Presumably the two ANBU had followed Gaara home earlier to do a perimeter check. It was what Gaara would expect of them. They might have witnessed that scene in the courtyard, but they had not interfered. For that, Gaara was grateful. 

"Sir?"

"You said your sister would be willing to take the children in, correct?"

Taidaka was silent for a second, probably in amazement. His Kazekage was not a man to change his mind ordinarily.

"Yes sir," he said, recovering quickly, his shoulders unbending a hair from their usual hard battle-ready stance. "She would be honoured to-"

"Then I would ask a favour of you and your family." 

It was over half an hour before Lee came down the stairs. Taidaka had had time to check with his sister and confirm the arrangements for the children. 

Lee looked troubled and sad, but Gaara didn't think he'd gotten any information out of Chiro. Gaara hoped Lee wouldn't think to question him more closely on the incident. He didn't want to cause his lover any pain. Or anger, but the thought that Lee would be mad at him for making Chiro cry like that had barely brushed Gaara's mind and had not influenced his decision to stay quiet. Lee was occasionally cross with him, and he always got over it. But the full truth would hurt him and leave him feeling sad and helpless, and Gaara didn't think Lee could do much more than he was already doing; loving the boy unconditionally and sheltering him as much as he could.

Lee sat down on the couch in a boneless motion that was at odds with his usual dynamism. 

"Chiro's asleep," he said quietly. "So is Aki. They kind of kept waking each other up, but they both nodded off in the end. I...guess something like this had to happen sooner or later. I was actually getting kind of worried, but he didn't want to talk about it. Maybe things will be better now." Then he put his head back against the cushions and rubbed his eyes.

Gaara put down his brush. 

"Do you know Taidaka Minne?"

Lee looked at him blankly. "Should I?" Then he frowned. "Taidaka, like..."

"Yes, she's Taidaka's sister."

"...He has a sister?" Lee's eyes were wide. He looked like he was trying to imagine a female Taidaka, something Gaara had been steadfastly trying not to do.

"Yes. She's ten years younger than he is. She has two boys. The youngest is Chiro's age. She knows how to take care of children and toddlers."

Lee's tired eyes flinched. "You...think I should foster them out to-"

"No," Gaara said with a flash of irritation. He'd concluded from day one that this wasn't an option. He was admittedly brutal, but he knew Lee better than that. His lover should have more faith in the little humanity and empathy Gaara had managed to scrape together over the years, especially since Lee's influence was the main reason Gaara had even bothered with them in the first place. "She has offered to let the three of you spend a few hours a day with her and her boys starting tomorrow, so she can show you how to take care of children that age. That way you don't have to manage with only minimal information, the conflicted advice of half the village and the help of my ANBU."

The shining look Lee gave him made the arrangements with the Taidakas worthwhile. It even made the past two days, the scene in the courtyard and the children's very presence here worthwhile. Then a flicker of hesitation crossed Lee's expressive features. "Um, that's very kind of her, but won't I be imposing-"

"Do it. Please. For my sake. I don't like to see you this worried," Gaara said quietly, knowing it would be much harder for Lee to refuse that way. "It will be better for the children's health, too. I'm sure they'll be fine here with you, but I don't think it's wise to figure out their care by trial and error, especially with a baby."

He had every faith that Lee would learn quickly and well once this woman had shown him the works. That should take care of the problems they'd been having with Aki. Lee would be able to get some proper sleep, recover from his journey from Konoha and be less stressed overall, and that could only be good for the children by knock-on effect. This scheme had the added advantage of getting Chiro out of the house for a few days, so he wouldn't be getting constantly hysterical when he caught sight of Gaara.

"I guess you're right," Lee admitted ruefully. "For the kid's sakes, I really should. I'll find a way of thanking Minne-san for this later. I just didn't think it would be this complicated to figure out on my own, but then again, I'm no genius."

"They say I'm a genius and you're doing better than I would," Gaara pointed out, picking up his brush from its inkstone. "We need a woman's help. They're conditioned to take care of children. They're built for bearing them and raising them after all. If my sister were here, she'd take care of it." Gaara had heard of the term ‘maternal instinct', and now that he'd come into contact with children, he figured it was a good thing this was wired into half of the population.

Lee was giving him an odd look. Then he smiled faintly.

"Right, it's settled. I'll go to Minne-san's tomorrow and learn everything I can from her, but I'd really like it if you did one thing for me."

Gaara glanced up from his work curiously.

Lee stood up, went over to the desk and kissed him gently.

"I'll do anything you want as long as you never say any of that ‘women are conditioned to take care of children' stuff to Temari," Lee whispered into his ear, "because you know how I hate it when you get yourself badly injured."

Lee left before Gaara could ask him what he meant by that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naturally I disagree with Gaara on this too; women are not naturally equipped to be good at taking care of children (more's the pity), and men are not naturally sub-par at it either. Gaara is just kind of hoping somebody else out there is hardwired for this and thus less confused than he and Lee are, because he can't imagine the human race would have survived otherwise. One day he will pitch his theory to Temari and be made to understand how wrong that is ^__^


	7. Day Four - 2AM

Day Four - 2AM

 

“I tried not to blame you. I tried to love you.” There were bubbles of frothy pink blood in Yashamaru’s mouth. His eyes were glazed. The crackle and rasp behind his words meant a lung had collapsed and punctured beneath his broken ribs. “But she died-...because of you...I-...couldn’t-...please, just die...“

“Gaara? Is everything okay?”

“It’s your fault!” Temari’s nose and eyes were red, as if she’d been crying when no one was looking, but she wasn’t crying now. Her face was screwed up in hate and anger that made her look much older than six. “It’s your fault my mother’s dead! I hate you!”

“It wasn’t even worth it,” his father said, disgust and anger and disappointment blended. “He’s too unstable. A rabid monster. We have to get rid of him, he’s useless and way too dangerous.”

“...Gaara?”

“You- you killed them! You fucking psycho! Why did you- Stay away from me!” Kankuro shouted, backing up so fast he tripped and fell over. Gaara felt a sense of cold validation at the fear in Kankuro’s eyes. He existed. Seeing himself reflected in that fear, he knew he existed. A streak of vicious amusement faded as Gaara decided if he wanted to kill this one too.

“Gaara!”

Gaara started awake to find Lee crouched a few feet away, watching him cautiously and poised to leap back. For a heart-crushing moment, Gaara looked into Lee’s eyes...but there he found only concern and pain and fear and love, and all of it for him.

The present came back in a rush. Gaara took a deep breath and let his head sink into one hand. He was sitting in a corner of the Kazekage’s study- his study, he was the Kazekage, he was twenty-one, he defended his village, his siblings had forgiven him, he hadn’t actually killed anyone in months and Lee loved him. 

“You okay?” Lee whispered. 

Gaara nodded soundlessly. The palm of his hand dug into his eye, sparking a minor ache and little flickers of light. He was back now.

“Wow. That was a bad one. I felt it all through the house.”

Gaara took in a breath of air that hurt like acid. Lee. Lee was here, uninjured, but- “Are the children alright?” Gaara rasped as the darkness inside whispered of Sand crushing small limbs.

“Of course. Of course they are, they didn’t even wake up. Your chakra was all over the place, but they can’t feel that. Nothing else happened.”

Gaara cracked open his eyes and glanced around. Almost all the Sand had erupted from the gourd, trying to protect him from something that could not be defended against. It was riled, flowing back and forth before him like a deadly tide, scoring the tiled floor. It had knocked one of the ornamental scrolls off the wall and ripped it, but nothing more. Gaara quickly called it to order with a mental snap of the fingers, and it slunk back into its container.

Lee immediately crept nearer, watching Gaara carefully. 

“A bad one,” Lee repeated, voice soft and full of love and concern. “And it’s not even the full moon out.” There was a question there, but he wasn’t pressing it. 

If he thought it was Shukaku acting up, Gaara was going to let him believe that, though for once the Tail was almost blameless. Shukaku hadn’t done much more than help Gaara’s own memories savage him while looking on in cruel delight. 

“Are you okay? Is this...is this because of the kids? Is their presence-”

“No. It was something from the past,” Gaara answered, almost entirely truthfully. He wouldn’t have slept any better tonight had Chiro not been in the house. As for the rest...he wouldn’t burden Lee with it. Lee helped him in so many other things. Such as now, strong arms wrapping around him cautiously but without fear or disgust. Gaara touched his skin, the light t-shirt and training pants he wore to bed; the smells and warmth and texture of them were familiar and every-day and safe.

The dregs of the darkness were starting to seep away when he heard a muffled cry from upstairs. Lee started and twisted around where he sat as if he could see the bedroom if he squinted at the ceiling hard enough. 

“It’s Chiro. Sounds like he’s had another nightmare.”

“He has my sympathies,” Gaara muttered into Lee’s shoulder. “You should go.”

Lee was tense, hesitating. Gaara pushed at his arm and straightened up. “Go,” he repeated. Upstairs, Chiro was moaning, a high panicked whimper. He wouldn’t wake up until Lee shook him. 

“But-“

“He needs you. And you need that,” Gaara declared, perfectly logically.

Lee looked confused, but he didn’t ask any questions. From the first floor, they could hear Chiro make that loud whimpering noise again. Lee got up into a crouch, touched Gaara’s face and looked into his eyes. “I need you, too,” he said softly. “We all do. So please take care of yourself, and let me help. I’ll be down again as soon as Chiro is all right. Don’t go back to sleep, okay?”

As if he needed Lee to tell him that. Something feral stirred at the back of Gaara’s mind, a creature that didn’t like depending on others, who’d rather kill the world and end up alone so nobody could hurt him again...but he leashed it in successfully, the result of several years of habit and hard work. 

“I’ve got a couple of edicts to go through,” Gaara said prosaically, getting to his feet. “I’ll work on that.”

“Wasn’t what I meant by taking care-“ Lee muttered as he rushed out the door, before the curtain swung back into place and muffled his words.

Gaara sat at his desk, picked up his brush, checked that his seal and wax and files were all in place; a habit he had, particularly when he wanted to center himself. But today the order of his desk, of his current life, did nothing to help. He stared at some papers; he would never be able to say what they were about later, his mind was on dark and forbidden things until Lee showed up at the entrance to his study.

Lee started to say something about Chiro, but he took one look at Gaara’s face and stayed silent. He marched over to the desk instead, manhandled Gaara out of his chair and over to the couch, and held him. Three years ago it would have been too dangerous to do this. Now it was a comfort. Gaara traveled slowly out of the paths of his past and of his mind, working through the twists and the memories, hidden in Lee’s warmth and strength. 

A grey dawn poked at the window with that crystal quality that spoke of the desert. Lee fell asleep at some point, for which Gaara was thankful. His lover needed the rest. Finally he prodded Lee awake and sent him to bed to sleep some more in a way that would not give him a crick in the neck. 

And then he got to work for real, burying himself in his duties as he had years ago, when he used to have nightmares like that or worse every night, every time he closed his eyes. Gaara was constantly amazed that he’d survived those early days after the Chuunin exam without going completely insane.

A couple of hours later he heard Lee come down the stairs. Gaara remembered that the kids and his lover were going to Taidaka Minne’s today. It felt like a month since he’d made those arrangements. Aki burbled, he sounded chirpy this morning. Gaara could hear Chiro’s feet drag and he could just imagine the reluctant, hollow look on the boy’s face. He'd stay in his study until they left and not distress the child further, it was about all Gaara could do now.

Lee seemed to be cajoling his young cousin. “- a very nice lady, you’ll see. I know her brother and he’s, er, a pillar of the community. Come on, put on your shoes.”

“I don’t want to go.”

Gaara had the feeling he’d heard this conversation before. 

“What? Why not? You’ve been stuck in this house for days, and I’ve not been taking very good care of you, what with your brother being sick,” Lee said with a sigh. “Come on, Chiro. You’ll have fun, you’ll see. Minne-san has two boys, and one of them’s your age! Won’t that be fun? You can- Chiro? Where are you- hey, wait-"

Gaara lifted his head at the tone in Lee’s voice. The curtain to his study twitched aside and Chiro wormed his way under it.

The boy’s eyes were round and wide with white showing around the brown pupils. His hair was a mess and his face was tired and puffy. He had the notebook and pencil clutched to his chest. He stared at Gaara, who stared back. As Lee lifted the curtain, though, Chiro broke into quick, deliberate steps making towards the nook under the window seat. Gaara had stood up automatically, but Chiro walked right past him as if the monster that had scarred him yesterday wasn’t even there.

Gaara stared at the child, then at Lee who returned his look of bewilderment. Lee walked slowly over to Gaara’s desk with the gait of someone trying not to frighten a small animal. He ignored the way Aki had pitched forward in his arms, wiggled beneath his elbow and was trying to yank his belt off.

“Chiro...?”

There was a fraction of a huddle from Chiro, the only response.

“Um, Gaara needs to work today,” Lee said weakly. “You shouldn’t-”

“He can stay,” Gaara said, surprising himself, and certainly startling Lee. “But he’ll have to stay here, in the study. Or wherever I am,” Gaara added, with a sharp look at Chiro to see if the kid would loose his nerve at the prospect. 

Chiro didn’t even flinch. It was as if Gaara hadn't spoken at all. For a fraction of a second Gaara's existence seemed to become dangerously tenuous, as if he'd suddenly disappeared without anyone noticing or caring. A jarring moment refracting the darkest fears of his childhood. But Lee was looking at him and that grounded him, especially the warmth in his lover’s gaze.

“Gaara, are you sure you don’t mind?” 

Gaara wordlessly shook his head. 

“That’s good then. Minne-san will already have her hands full with just me and Aki today. I’m glad you two are getting along so well,” Lee added suddenly with a brilliant smile. He impetuously leaned forward to kiss Gaara, since Chiro had his back turned towards them and Aki was nearly upside down in Lee’s arms and apparently enjoying it. Gaara just stood there and didn’t react, but his lover didn’t really notice as he was giving Chiro some quick last minute injunctions to be polite and respectful and to do everything that Gaara said.

Lee left in a hurry since he was running a bit late. Tardiness was tantamount to disrespect and dishonor, and Wrong in the Jounin's view of the world. Gaara was still standing at his desk, trying to make sense of all this. He finally sat down and stared hard at Chiro. The kid was drawing in his notebook already and apparently paying him no attention, though the way he was huddled suggested some strong emotion and a good dose of fear.

This was unexpected. This was _strange_. Even by Gaara’s standards.

He’d made the child cry. He’d made him scream like his soul was splitting in two. He’d scared him and shown him the Sand and thrust the ugly truth at him like he was stabbing the boy through the chest with it, and now the kid wanted to stay home with him? 

Gaara looked through his instincts, but they were just as baffled as his intellect. Oh, a few of the more paranoid ones were coming up with possible explanations for this, but he didn’t really think Chiro would try to kill him. Not unless he was a hopeless idiot to have missed the difference between their levels. Maybe in ten years time and with a lot of training he might stand a chance, but not today.

Why didn’t the boy hate him? Why was he sitting there, looking like he preferred this to a normal woman's home? What Gaara had done yesterday had been ugly and painful and, unfortunately, necessary. At a very instinctive level, Gaara felt sure he'd done the right thing, but surely the boy should hate him for it. Maybe it was too late, maybe the child was insane. How was Lee going to take that?

At the back of Gaara's mind, a memory of Naruto was causing further disorder to his certainties. How the Nine-Tail bearer had crushed him, body and soul, and saved him, body and soul...The memory was confusing, and didn’t apply to Chiro for so many reasons that Gaara dismissed it with a flash of annoyance. But he couldn’t get rid of it entirely. With that past recollection twisted in his mind like scar tissue, he didn’t feel sure of anything anymore.

Chiro was quiet in his corner. Gaara flipped over a few papers, pretending to work while he observed the boy discreetly, trying to figure this one out. He normally didn’t bother decrypting human behavior aside from Lee and his family and small circle of friends, but Chiro was now in a small way his responsibility. Like it or not, they shared something, and the boy had come to him for the truth. Gaara had had to fight long years to be accepted and trusted and relied on by his village; he’d never had a responsibility unexpectedly thrust upon him like this before. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but liking it wasn’t required and never had been. 

The boy was drawing those squares again, Gaara could tell from the regularity of the pencil strokes. But he would glance around at the adult in the room occasionally, gaze quickly flinching away when brown eyes met green.

Finally Chiro put down his notebook as if it was something heavier than it was and very delicate. He stood up and came to stand near the desk again, closer than the other day. He hesitated for a long minute, and then addressing the foot of Gaara's chair he mumbled: "It's not my fault?"

“No.”

Chiro's eyes filled with tears to Gaara's unease. If the kid started bawling like that again...he'd do what Lee had, put him to bed and all that, but he didn't have Lee's presence, his heart or his warmth. He’d have to send one of the ANBU to Minne’s to get Lee.

But Chiro scrubbed his eyes with a gesture that was almost vicious, and then he gave Gaara that searching, expectant look again. 

“They said I would be blamed too, because I share his blood,” Chiro whispered as if ‘they’ might hear and come and confirm it. Or was he expecting Gaara to confirm it. Was that what he'd been waiting for all this time? For someone to finally tell him what he thought was the truth and blame him?

“They said I was a shame to my family.” Chiro rubbed his eyes again. His face was getting red and puffy, but he wasn’t really crying. 

“Who did?” Gaara finally asked. “The people of your clan?” 

Chiro’s face scrunched up. There was still some fear in the child’s demeanor, Gaara could tell. But it seemed to not matter that he was afraid of Gaara, he was still relying on him. The kid stared at him for awhile and maybe he finally decided that, whatever monstrous thing he was, Gaara wasn’t ‘them’, and so he finally nodded quickly.

“They said that me and Aki would have to run away and then the ANBU would hunt us down and they would cut us up and then they would bury the pieces,” Chiro confided in a whisper, with something like morbid fascination at the thought.

What...?

Was there any likelihood that Lee might have a family reunion at some point in the future? The Kazekage would be accompanying him in that case. He needed to have a word with some people. But no, on reflection this didn’t make any sense. Gaara had cause to know that there were some very sick people out there, and others who raised cruelty to a fine art, but nobody related to Lee even distantly would be capable of this. 

“Nobody is going to hunt you down and kill you,” he said abruptly. His voice sounded too loud, too deep and real after Chiro’s childish whispers. 

“Even the ANBU?” Chiro asked, looking at Gaara from the corner of his eyes.

“The Konoha ANBU are not coming for you. The ones you've seen these days were mine. From Suna.”

Chiro didn’t leap about in relief, or even comment. He just stared at Gaara blankly as if the Kazekage's words had been so alien he wasn’t even going to try to make sense of them. The distinction, the intricacies of intra-village politics and the rule of Shinobi law probably escaped him, but Gaara's blunt tone must have been reassuring nonetheless, because something in the boy seemed to unwind a fraction. He rubbed his reddened nose, then paused to pick at something inside a nostril. He wiped his fingers on his t-shirt and finally gave Gaara a look which was much more searching and potent than a four-year-old should be allowed to give a Kazekage.

“The ANBU _really_ won’t come here and kill me n’ Aki?” he asked probingly.

Gaara closed his eyes and rubbed them. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Who could have told him...?

A memory floated up from Gaara’s childhood. His intuition stirred.

“Who told you-“ about your mother's murder, was what Gaara had been about to ask, but his instincts kicked in and informed him that if he really wanted to deal with a hysterical child, that was definitely the question to ask. “Who told you that the ANBU would be after you? Was it the children of the people you stayed with, before Lee brought you here?”

Chiro nodded glumly. 

Of course. The children. They'd have overheard a garbled version of what the adults were talking about between themselves, and Gaara knew they would not hesitate to use it. Children had no tolerance for the different, the alien. It was either a danger and avoided, or a weakness to exploit. They’d have also picked up on their parent’s subconscious hostility towards the traitor’s children, and at least they’d be open and honest about it.

“Chiro.”

The boy had been staring fixedly at the gourd leaning against the front of the desk, but he looked up at the sound of command in Gaara's voice.

“Those children were idiots. The people of Konoha are after your father, not you.” He just wished he could say that they would treat Chiro fairly and not blame him, even unconsciously, for his father’s crimes, but that would be a lie. Chiro was upset enough at the mention of his father, his eyes wide and fixed and chewing desperately on the end of his pencil; he didn't need that ugly, unfair truth on top of it.

Gaara leaned forward, making Chiro start a bit at his proximity. “None of this is your fault, and you should not worry what fools think of you. You’re in Suna now anyway. The Konoha ANBU are not going to hurt you. The Shinobi in this village will protect you. You are not a shame to your family. Your family is Lee. He loves you,” Gaara said, tone blunt and unarguable.

From Chiro’s pinched face and distracted expression, he did not find that of any particular comfort. This was beyond Gaara’s capacity to understand. Who wouldn’t be comforted by knowing that at least one person loved you?

Chiro went back to staring at the gourd and chewing on the end of the pencil. Then he turned without a further word, walked back to his little den and started to draw. He was at an angle where Gaara could see what he was doing now. He was still drawing squares and triangles, but they meandered across the page and there were other figures inside them instead of those rigorously geometrical hatches. The pencil was hopelessly blunted by now, and the drawings crude, but after a moment of discreet observation - and remembering things a lonely little boy of four had once drawn in the sand of deserted playgrounds - Gaara figured out a few of them: pictograms of shuriken, or perhaps stars; stick figures like crosses and things with four legs; red bumps and dots. Chiro smudged old drawings with his fist as he worked on new ones, until the paper, his hands and his face were pinkened with it. 

Finally even the attraction of the paper dwindled. Chiro stared at nothing much, the pencil still drifting aimlessly across the red world he’d drawn. Then he scrambled out from under the window seat, glanced at Gaara with those big, hesitant eyes and hoisted himself onto the wooden plank, now cushionless. He stayed on his knees, staring outside as the sun slowly crept over the rock garden and the sand. 

Gaara was getting a bit restless as well. He’d tried picking at his work, but between the dregs of his nightmare, Chiro’s questions, Lee’s absence and memories of the past haunting him, he was having a hard time focusing with the boy in the room. He fingered a folder, and realized it was Taidaka's latest status report on the hunt for Rock Katsuro. Since nothing new would have miraculously appeared in the folder within the last few hours, Gaara pushed it aside. 

A note from Tetsuyo caught his eye. It was on a pile of old logs he'd asked for. Gaara picked it up, remembering something that he’d planned to do later today. That was before he’d been left with Chiro. But though Gaara had told Lee he’d keep an eye on the boy and that no harm would befall him, that didn’t mean he had to watch and protect him here, at the house. 

He stood up, making Chiro start and look around quickly. 

“We're going to the gates. Come on.”

Chiro looked reluctant, but he didn’t whine like he’d done with Lee. He slipped down from the seat and followed Gaara to the door of the study.

It took Chiro a little while to get his sandals on. One reason for the delay being that he was still clutching his red pencil in one hand, though he'd left the notepad behind. Gaara said nothing, and waited until the child was ready before opening the door and watching the kid trip out into the sunshine.

Gaara headed down the hill from which his house dominated the village. It was past nine in the morning, the air felt cool with a prickly promise of heat to come. Gaara’s footsteps raised dust from the street. Chiro trailed behind him, walking irregularly from a slow tread to a half-trot to catch up.

Gaara slowed when they rounded the bend at the bottom of the hill and neared the playground. The swings where he had occasionally sat to watch the other children had been damaged in a sandstorm a couple of years ago and not yet replaced. The frame stood like the skeleton of a bad memory in the sand of the small park. Three children were chasing each other around its scarred and twisted metal. 

‘You should listen to the children play sometimes’, Lee had told him. Gaara normally ignored the playground and its occupants entirely, not caring for the memories evoked. Today his eyes were drawn to their game. Were they playing some form of tag? Was the Oni pretending to be the beautiful and evil sorceress Tsunade? He didn’t think it’d be Gaara of the Desert. He'd make an appropriate bogeyman in other villages, but not when playing within the long shadow of his residence. 

The faint prickle of curiosity had pushed him to venture closer to the park than he usually did, close enough to listen to children. But all activity had immediately ceased as soon as he’d crossed the low stone border around the playground. The children were staring at him wide-eyed; they were the ones who usually played here, but they'd never have seen him this close. They were older than Chiro, he estimated, they might already be in the Academy, on the path to becoming Shinobi and his subordinates.

They were staring at Chiro too, and suddenly Gaara felt an unexpected contact. The Sand hissed in the gourd, roiling against the sides. Gaara stilled his reflexes to defend and retaliate, and glanced down. Chiro had stepped behind him and was hanging on to a panel of his coat. 

Gaara looked at the perfectly harmless children and the one hiding in the shadow of Gaara of the Desert, and wondered why his life had gotten so very nonsensical.

Ignoring all children, Gaara walked on- there was an unintentional tug on his coat as Chiro stumbled after him.

Gaara stopped and looked down again. Chiro looked back, big eyes round, hesitant, even a little scared. He stepped back. But at the same time his hands fastened on Gaara’s coat even harder, making his body language a jumble of contradictions and pulling Gaara’s coat out as Chiro took another step away.

Gaara stared at him. Questions fused in his mind, frustrated at his usual lack of being able to figure out another human creature. Why aren’t you terrified? Why are you here with me and not with Lee? Why aren’t you afraid of touching me? Do you realize I could kill you with barely more than a mental twitch? That a part of me feels like doing so just because you’re confusing me and that’s annoying?

He glanced from Chiro to the far side of Suna, the north wall distantly visible over the houses. He gave up on questions he had no chances of formulating and wondered, more prosaically, if Chiro was capable of walking a little faster. At the rate they’d been going down the hill, it would take them an hour to reach the gates.

Chiro stoically bore the long scrutiny that followed. He still looked wary. He was still clutching Gaara’s coat. 

“You’re too slow. I’m going to have to carry you,” Gaara stated and waited for a reaction to that.

It wasn’t the one he’d expected, though at this point that was no longer surprising. Chiro, to his credit, gave him a long suspicious look, but then he dropped the coat and stepped up to Gaara and lifted his arms. Gaara was sufficiently off-balance by all that had happened since yesterday that he gave Chiro’s grubby hands a suspicious look of his own before realizing that the kid was not armed and that he was only making it easier for Gaara to pick him up. 

He hauled the kid into his arms the way Lee had done on previous occasions. Chiro started to wiggle and Gaara almost put him down again, but then he realized that the boy was just trying to get comfortable. Chiro, who obviously had more experience than Gaara did at this, squirmed until he was almost sitting on Gaara’s left forearm. Gaara shifted his balance to compensate for the four-year-old’s weight, but other than that he let Chiro settle himself without trying to help. 

Once Chiro stopped moving, Gaara walked on, having wasted enough time. He ignored the children staring at him in amazement from the playground.

Chiro put his hands on Gaara’s shoulder for balance, twisting his head around to face forward, and didn’t look particularly freaked out. The same couldn’t be said for the people they passed. The two Shinobi on patrol merely stared for a brief astounded second before walking on quickly, eyes focused on their route, but the fruit-seller where Gaara and Lee bought their melons, figs and oranges, dropped some of his merchandise on his stall’s floor and then stepped on it in his confusion.

Gaara walked on steadily, faster than before, though he didn’t take to the roofs. He had this vague notion that children were fragile, breakable things and shouldn’t be jarred too badly.

Chiro’s eyes went from the street to Gaara. The fist on Gaara's shoulder curled around the pencil, but that left Chiro with one free finger to stick in his mouth. He scrutinized the Kazekage up close. Gaara tamped down on a few stray instincts. Lee, Naruto and his family had all habituated him to contact with others over the years, though Gaara still had a hard time letting his guard down. He didn’t shake hands, or let strangers within his personal space. But Chiro’s proximity did not feel threatening; the boy was way too weak. As long as the kid wasn’t too scared, this would work out and save time. 

In a side street, an older Genin with a courier pouch twisted his head around to stare and walked straight into a pylon. Gaara paid the man no heed.

“What’s that stuff on your eyes?” Chiro suddenly asked, not too intelligibly. 

It took Gaara a couple of seconds to figure out what Chiro was referring to. 

“This?” he asked, touching the dark circles with the hand that wasn’t carrying the kid. Chiro nodded. “We’re not sure. These marks appeared when I was a few months old. Some say they’re caused by the lack of sleep. I don’t sleep much,” he added, remembering that this child might not know the details. “I use chakra to survive and stay sane. Somewhat sane. Other people say that they’re the mark of Shukaku. They may be right.”

Chiro nibbled his lip, shoving it into his mouth with his finger. This left grime marks on his chin. Gaara knew that Lee washed the child every night, which was already a waste of water in Gaara’s books. It beat him how the boy could get so grubby again in so short a time.

Chiro looked puzzled, and Gaara realized his explanation had been a bit lacking.

“Shukaku is the demon that was bound inside me when I was a baby,” he elaborated, since that was also something the child was probably the only person in the village not to know.

The kid seemed to repeat Shukaku slowly under his breath. That explanation should have given rise to other questions, among which should have been the obvious one, ‘was Gaara really a demon then?’ But Chiro didn’t ask anything else. Since Gaara hadn’t fully figured that one out himself to his entire satisfaction, he didn’t add anything. The walk towards the gate was spent in silence, with only the occasional wide-eyed stare from Suna’s inhabitants.

 

Day Four - 11AM

 

Gaara could have sent for the gate entry logs, but he liked to inspect the defences on a regular basis, and it was good to get away from his desk from time to time. The sun was starting to beat down on the gate fort, but it was still pleasantly cool in the large room mostly made of windows and murder holes, giving the watchers a good view of the entrance to Suna and an excellent defensive position. 

Chiro had scrambled up onto a chair, then a table and, on his hands and knees, leaned out of the window, apparently fascinated at how small the guards below looked from this height. The Shinobi who’d been going through the logs with Gaara had been getting increasingly distracted by this. Gaara just made sure that, in the unlikely event Chiro managed to fall out the window, the Sand would be able to catch him before he tumbled more than one story. He’d promised Lee that no harm would befall the child after all. He didn’t think the guard’s tension every time Chiro leaned out was justified, but it finally got on his nerves so he asked Chiro to stop doing that. 

The Chuunin relaxed enough to go get the next stack of log observations from the safe room. Gaara closed the files he’d been examining, automatically reapplying the warding seals locking away the date and time of entrance, reason for visit, ID and letter of transit of any foreigner entering Suna. He put down the dossier, glanced around and noticed Chiro’s pencil lying on a chair a few feet away. The boy wasn’t looking his way, he was still at the window staring out, so Gaara picked it up. He applied a flicker of concentration, mostly aimed at not breaking the fragile thing in his fingers. Sand crept up the pencil and abraded it to a sharp point. It would have been easier with a kunai, but Gaara didn’t carry other weapons. The pencil’s bluntness had been distantly annoying him, like a faint itch he couldn’t scratch.

The Chuunin returned. Gaara opened a new log at random, and Chiro hopped down from the table and wandered around the room, looking at the weapons and jutsu scrolls readily available for defense. The Sand Shinobi had briefly relaxed when the boy had moved away from the window, but now he tensed up again and looked at Gaara beseechingly.

“Don’t touch anything,” Gaara told the boy without looking around.

Chiro made some kind of nuh-huh noise, but he sounded distracted and a bit antsy. It was time to go anyway. Gaara had inspected the logs and adherence to procedures, and memorized two dozen entries at random; he would crosscheck them with the official copies on his desk. He'd been told that his father had only rarely verified the books, and he’d let his secretary handle the matter. Gaara trusted the people in his village and would defend them to the death, but he’d developed caution and self-reliance at a tender age, and it wasn’t a habit he felt like relinquishing, so he ran the checks himself on a frequent basis. Maybe it was paranoid to want to check all his sources of information personally from time to time, but the way Gaara saw it, his father had been murdered by a man he’d thought his accomplice, while Gaara was still alive and well despite a good many assassination attempts and dangerous situations, so paranoia paid off in the end.

“Let’s go,” he said, just as the kid was reaching out a tentative finger towards a scintillating straight blade. Chiro went to grab his pencil, completely failing to notice its new sharpness, and followed at a trot.

The changing of the guard was about to start when Gaara descended into the courtyard of the defence outpost, so he stopped to watch. The maneuvre looked like it was going to be picture-perfect with their Kazekage standing there watching them. Gaara observed dutifully, but he was distracted by the feel of a familiar presence approaching him from behind. A rare edge of a smile twisted his lips, but he kept his eyes on the maneuvre, noting how the patrolers correctly identified their colleagues, checked for henges and reported to the officer to sign out. Only then did he turn around to greet his brother.

“You’re back,” Gaara said. Then he dropped his gaze in surprise. Kankuro was crouched down loosely, his puppet scrolls canted on his shoulder to avoid dragging them in the dirt, and he was staring in fascination at Chiro who had just now started violently and scurried around Gaara.

“Okay,” Kankuro said, scratching his hooded head, “what did I miss? Why do you have a miniature Lee hiding behind you? Did you guys do something really, really weird while I was away?”

Gaara frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean and I’d rather not know. This is Lee’s cousin, Rock Kichiro. Chiro, this idiot is my older brother Kankuro.”

“Oy, who you calling an idiot?”

Chiro was still staring at Kankuro. Just as Gaara wondered why, the boy whispered loudly enough for the garrison to hear: “What’s wrong with his face?”

Oh. Right.

“Nothing. It’s paint. Kankuro, stop that, you’re scaring the boy” His brother was leaning around Gaara to get a better look. Chiro was edging back.

Kankuro exploded into raucous laughter.

“I’m scaring him? _I’m_ scaring him?! Oh man, that’s like- right, the world is spinning clockwise today. That explains everything.”

Gaara had to admit that that was pretty weird, on reflection.

“So...Lee’s cousin?” Kankuro asked, straightening up and giving Gaara a piercing look.

“Yes.”

“Lee’s taking care of him?” There was another question behind that one, an obvious one to any Jounin who’d lost men in a campaign before. 

“He’s taking care of both of them. Chiro has a younger brother, too.”

Kankuro winced. “Two of them? Damn, poor guy. But that’s the way it goes. It happens.”

Kankuro was assuming the kids were orphans, which was certainly the first explanation that would spring to a Shinobi’s mind. Gaara would have a word with his brother later to inform him that his assumption was unfortunately not quite correct. But that could wait until Chiro was out of earshot. Gaara had all the empathy of a lizard, according to his loved ones, but he wasn’t that insensitive. Neither did he want to deal with another fit of hysteria, the last one had been noisy and harrowing enough.

Kankuro was staring down at Chiro’s head and rubbing his nose, effectively covering whatever expression on his face wasn't camouflaged by the paint. 

“So that means...they’re living here? With _you_?”

“Yes,” Gaara said, eyes narrowing in warning.

“You’re living with two kids.”

“Yes.” 

“How old’s the other one?”

“Ten months.”

Something suspiciously like a snigger escaped Kankuro’s muffling hand, but apparently he wasn’t quite sure how annoyed Gaara was at this point, so he was trying to control it.

“...Really.”

“Yes.”

“Poor little buggers.”

Kankuro coughed without looking Gaara in the eye, then he crouched down again and extended his hand at a distance that wouldn’t frighten Chiro and would force him to come out from behind the Kazekage.

“Hi kid. How you doin’? Don’t worry,” he added with a wink as Chiro leaned away, eyes still fixed on his face, “it’s just paint.”

“...Hana Kyo has two red marks on his face. Back home.”

Gaara couldn’t see what that had to do with the situation, but Kankuro nodded wisely and said: “Does he now?”

He still had his hand extended. Chiro’s gaze finally dropped to it, and he took a step forward and shook it at arm’s length, though he kept the other hand knotted in Gaara’s coat.

“His sister Rika does too. She says it’s the mark of their clan.”

“Really?”

“She’s seven years old and in the academy and she thinks she knows everything,” Chiro said disparagingly.

“Yeah, big sisters are like that. Right, bro?”

“I’m going to be five in a few months. Rika has a puppy. Her whole clan has dogs. Their three Inuzuka cousins are all Jounin, and their dogs go with them on missions.”

“Yeah, I know the guys you’re talking about, shrimp. Scruffy as their mutts, but I guess they’re okay fighters. Though of course I’m better.” He grinned at Chiro, who stared back in fascination.

Gaara was looking from one to the other. This was the most he’d heard Chiro speak in a normal conversation that didn’t involve death and killing. He’d had no idea his brother was this good with kids. Kankuro had been a bit of a bully when they were younger, transferring onto helpless targets his aggression for the younger brother he couldn’t beat up and who was a constant, nerve-wracking threat at his side. Gaara and Kankuro had mostly sorted that out by now, but that didn’t explain where the latter had picked up this ease with children, an ease that completely escaped Gaara.

Gaara found himself looking Kankuro over thoughtfully. The unfamiliar word ‘babysitter’ was hovering in his mind. 

“Man, you really look like Lee. Gonna grow up to be a Taijutsu master like your coz?”

“...dunno...”

“How was your mission?” Gaara asked, not particularly interested in Chiro’s long-term plans for the future.

“Hm, you asking as my brother or as my boss?” Kankuro asked, straightening up again. “Because I’d tell my boss ‘mission accomplished’, but I’d tell my brother that it was fuck- that it wasn’t fun. Next time the council has a- that kind of job to do, tell them to send a grunt.” 

“They needed a high security clearance.”

“Tell them to send a high-security clearance grunt. I hate these bloo- stupid courier jobs.” Gaara wondered why Kankuro kept interrupting himself and glancing down at Chiro, who had nothing to do with the council, the mission or anything in Suna.

“I would have rather you stayed here as well,” Gaara admitted as he turned towards Suna’s main street. “With Temari and myself away-“

There was a sharp tug at his coat as Chiro stumbled after him, not quite fast enough. Gaara turned back and picked the kid up a bit more proficiently than the first time. He ignored the way the guards on the wall were gaping and Kankuro was snickering in a mildly hysterical way, and decided that now was the perfect time to go home, get an early lunch and try to imagine his life was normal again.

 

Day Four - 3PM 

 

Remnants of exhaustion and stress still lurked in Lee's movements when the Jounin showed up, but he was brimming over with proper Lee-like enthusiasm. He proudly showed Gaara the small notebook full of scribbled wisdom he’d garnered. Gaara wondered if he’d taken to calling Minne ‘sensei’ yet. 

“Chiro!” Lee exclaimed, going over to the window seat. He shifted a sleepy Aki to his other arm and reached under the wooden plank to give his cousin a pat on the head. “How was your day? Did you behave for Gaara?”

Chiro stared at him and gave a vague nod. The kid looked a bit tired, even grubbier than before, and he had a faint pink flush of sun across his cheeks and nose, but otherwise he was hale and unharmed, which was what mattered as far as Gaara was concerned. 

“What’s that you’re drawing?” Lee asked brightly, glancing down at the notepad where a fresh piece of paper had a scribble of lines over it.

Chiro gave the paper then his cousin a solemn look. “It’s a puppet.”

“A-...a what?” Gaara could understand Lee’s confusion. The pencil was sharper, but the drawing was still nothing more than a bunch of barely cohesive lines and circles, and still locked inside a large box.

“Can I have one?” Chiro asked.

“A puppet?” Lee sounded completely lost.

“My brother’s back,” Gaara informed him, rolling up the scroll he’d been checking. “We had lunch at his place.”

“Oh, I see. Well, Chiro, those puppets are really big, and they’re not for little boys.”

“He let me play with one,” Chiro said as if Lee hadn’t spoken.

“He _what?!_ ” 

“A model,” Gaara said, setting his seal into a dribble of warm wax. “He had a small half-articulated model of Karasu in his workshop.”

“There are poisons in his workshop,” Lee said plaintively.

“A fact my brother is aware of. Kankuro fetched it for him and let him play in the kitchen.” Gaara, who had naturally assumed that Chiro would avoid anything with a skull and crossbones label on it, had re-evaluated his ability to watch over small children after seeing his brother’s precautions. Tomorrow, Chiro was going to Minne’s.

“Oh, that’s okay then. Sorry, I was just worried. You should see how Minne-san has everything locked away or out of reach, even the cleaning liquid and the bleach. I didn’t think of that- I mean, who would drink bleach? But apparently that’s what Responsible Adults do. Um, our bleach is in the kitchen closet with the broom." 

“Feel free to put it somewhere else.” 

"There are a lot of things I have to put up out of reach, starting with that weapon's rack over there. I know this is your study...I hope you don't mind?"

"No."

“Okay, I’ll- yes?” Chiro had scrambled out from under the seat and given Lee’s arm a tug.

“Can we play?”

Gaara was not by nature an optimist, but he dared to feel a trifle relieved. That was new, and hopefully a sign that the boy wasn’t screwed up too badly. 

Lee appeared both startled and delighted. “Sure! What do you want to play? Ninja and Samurai?”

Chiro blinked. “I can’t play that. Mommy says-“

Needless to say, a nasty little silence followed. Chiro closed up, that brittle look back in his eyes, and Gaara could measure how much better he’d been just before that unfortunate word had popped up. Lee looked at him sadly. Aki burped and then sucked his thumb, eyes closing. Gaara stayed firmly out of it all, though he watched the scene with a prickle of morbid interest.

“I’m too little,” Chiro finally said, talking to the tiles beneath his feet.

“Really? I used to play that at your age. It’s fun. Though the bigger kids always used to push us smaller ones around and make us the samurai each time.” Lee was speaking in the tone of voice with which he filled unpleasant silences with the first words off the top of his head. 

Chiro didn’t say anything. Lee reached out and parted Chiro’s bangs from his face. “Do you want me to tell you a story?”

Chiro was silent for awhile, but just as Gaara had stopped expecting him to answer, he nodded. 

“Good! Let’s put Aki in his crib, get you some sliced apples and juice, and then I’ll tell you the story of Gai-sensei and the Moon Bandits! You’ll love it. How about you, Gaara?”

“I’ve already heard it,” Gaara said dryly.

“I mean do you want something to eat?” Lee said with an indulgent roll of the eyes for his obdurate boyfriend. Gai-sensei was another one of those subjects where the lovers agreed to disagree, since Gaara somehow could not be convinced that Gai-sensei was the embodiment of all that was Good and Pure and Youthful. The best Gaara could do was grant that Gai was a good Jounin, a Taijutsu master with only one peer, and at least said what he meant very, very loudly. 

“I need to get some work done.” 

“Want me to bring you something?”

“You already have enough to do. Go tell your story.” Gaara noted that Chiro was still looking preoccupied and withdrawn, but when Lee reached for him, the boy slipped a grimy hand into the big strong one.

Gaara followed Lee’s progress out of the study and into the reception room. The Jounin still looked so tired and there were echoes of unrelieved stress in his movements, but he probably hadn’t even noticed, his whole attention centered on the children, too busy worrying about them to care about his own health. 

Lee desperately needed a restful night, but he didn’t get it. Gaara heard him get up multiple times; once for Aki’s diapers, once for an accompanied trip to the bathroom, once to fetch Chiro a drink, twice for the boy’s nightmares. Lee, glass of water in hand, popped his head into the study to say hi just as Gaara picked up the last of the backed up reports. Maybe he was checking in on Gaara as well, making sure his lover hadn’t had another nightmare too. A needless verification, since Gaara had no intention of sleeping that night or the next. As for Lee, the Jounin was starting to have circles under his eyes that were threatening to make the two men a matching pair. The stress lines in his shoulders were also of some concern.

After chasing his lover off to bed, Gaara scribbled a note out. He’d hand it to the ANBU guard who was trying to be discreet out there in the moon-washed courtyard. The man could carry it to its destination. Time to ask the Taidakas for another favor.


	8. Day Five - 8 AM

Day Five - 8 AM

 

Gaara had always wondered what it was like to have a déjà-vu. He'd never been subjected to one; it seemed that being inhabited by Shukaku gave him the kind of psychological problems that scared away lesser types of mental blips. 

"Come on, we don't want to be late. Put on your shoes."

"I don't want to go."

Temari had tried to explain the sensation to him, but this was the first time Gaara thought he might actually know what it felt like.

He got up and headed towards the exit to his study. He lifted the curtain just as Chiro moved to duck beneath it. Gaara stopped, but the kid didn't and barreled right into him, despite having a whole second of reaction time available. Gaara hadn't bothered to step aside.

Chiro staggered back, eyes wide and wary. Strange how his fear seemed to come and go. Gaara had carried him yesterday, what was he looking so alarmed about now?

"Chiro." Lee was putting on his Stern expression, doubly effective on a face so mobile and so extremely serious when it wanted to be. "Gaara cannot watch over you today. You should already thank him for taking care of you yesterday. Today, we-"

Lee stopped talking and faced the door, as Gaara had. Both Shinobi had heard the faint sound of footsteps up the sandy path to their house. A few seconds later there was a polite knock.

"Were you expecting someone?" Lee asked, pulling a reluctant Chiro out of the study. "Don't worry, we'll be on our way right now. Come on, Chiro, Gaara has to work."

"It's Taidaka Minne," Gaara informed him, heading to open the door.

"No, it can't be," Lee said, hoisting up Aki one-handed as the kid tried to dive-bomb out of his arms again. "She's expecting us at her place in ten minutes, and- Minne-san?"

"Good morning, Kazekage-sama, Lee-san."

Gaara examined the woman on his doorstep with a flicker of curiosity. She didn't look much like her brother, which probably wasn't a bad thing as far as an anxious child was concerned. She was a small woman with a dark complexion and serious eyes. The set of the jaw was similar to Taidaka, perhaps.

"Minne-san? Did I misunderstand?" Lee appeared at Gaara's shoulder, radiating confusion. "I thought I had to bring the kids over at eight this morning."

Minne looked uncertainly at Gaara.

"I asked her to come and pick them up," Gaara said. "She can watch over them for a few hours. Without you."

"What?!" Lee stared at him- and Gaara felt a small grip on his sleeve.

"I don't want to go," Chiro said.

"You will." This was the first time Chiro had dared to say something like that to him, he noted. "Lee can join you this afternoon."

"Gaara-" Lee muttered, sounding a bit tense.

"I want to stay here," Chiro said to Gaara's knee.

"You can't. Neither Lee nor I can watch you this morning."

"Why?" Chiro asked. It was almost a whisper but it had faint undertones of rebellion that didn't quite dare to be outright. That was also new. 

"Lee and I have been busy for several weeks now, and we'd like to have-"

"Gaara!" 

Lee had gone beetroot red, while Aki complained in an agitated babble about the sudden noise next to his ear. Lee darted a mortified look at the third adult present, but Taidaka Minne was wife, daughter and sister to Shinobi, even if she wasn't one herself. She had the fixed expression of a person who could control her emotions and had too much respect for her Kazekage to judge what he was saying, or even listen unless directly addressed to her.

"...-some time to ourselves," Gaara finished as he'd intended, a bit exasperated. He'd been given the lecture by Lee, Temari and Kankuro on three separate occasions: you did not talk about your sex life in front of other people, particularly your brother (Kankuro had added that last item and insisted upon it). Gaara had respected the human taboo ever since, but just because of one candid comment he'd made in front of a few Councillors shortly after Lee had moved in, his siblings and lover still assumed the worst as soon as the subject threatened to tend in that direction. 

Lee closed his eyes and said in an overly calm voice: "Minne-san, would you please excuse us for a moment? Oh, and could you take Aki for me?"

The woman scooped Aki up in her arms without a comment. Gaara could see the Taidaka family resemblance more markedly now. Then Lee reached out and snagged Gaara's arm in much the same no-nonsense way as Minne had picked up Aki. Gaara sidestepped Chiro, freeing his sleeve from the boy's grip, and followed Lee to the study. 

"Gaara." Lee jerked the curtain shut with a frazzled gesture. "Look- I - that was rather high-handed of you! And I can't believe you asked Mi-hmf!"

It appeared that Lee was cross with him. This happened on a regular basis. Lee had a great, noble and forgiving soul, but he also had a temper and a streak of stubbornness a mile thick. And he sometimes seemed to take things Gaara said or did in a rather illogical manner. In this instance, Lee's anger might be justified, but Gaara had had his reasons too, and before he got yelled at he was going to make sure Lee knew what they were.

And it felt good to have that strong body against his own again. Lee tried to step back, but Gaara didn't let him move away and caught him up against the wall near the curtain without breaking the rough kiss. His hands fastened on the curve of Lee's jaw. fingers tangled in silk-fine hair, making Lee stiffen and shudder. Lee's scent - soap, shampoo and sweat - caressed Gaara's senses.

"Hm-..."

Lee tried to twist his head away, mouth open to object. A tactical mistake. Gaara moulded their bodies together, grinding his hip lightly into the juncture of Lee's legs, and caught any words that might fall out of his lover's open mouth with his tongue. 

He broke the kiss only when he felt sure Lee would not start talking again immediately.

"I want you," he whispered in Lee's ear, and felt the body against his quiver.

Lee's hands were on his back, sliding up to his shoulders- they jerked him back just as Gaara had assumed the discussion was over. 

"Just a minute. I- I know it's been frustrating, but- but I'm still angry, damn it!"

But he didn't look half as angry as a minute ago, Gaara noted. Gaara's argument was only working because Lee really needed this. Of course Gaara knew full well that _saying_ 'Lee, you need this' was the best way of getting Lee to deny it angrily, and challenge himself to do without sex for another month to prove it, or something equally preposterous. Though at this point Gaara had to say something, anything, because from the way Lee was drawing himself up, he was about to launch into a major lecture, and that was rarely conducive to getting laid. 

"We need this," Gaara improvised. 

From the way Lee's eyes widened and the corners of his mouth drooped, it had had more effect than Gaara had anticipated.

"Gaara..."

"Please," Gaara breathed into Lee's ear, leaning in, getting their bodies close together again-

They both broke apart and turned sharply towards the entrance to the study. A second later, Chiro squirmed beneath the curtain. The boy looked startled, seeing them just on the other side, but he didn't ask any question, he merely headed at high speed towards the nook beneath the window seat.

Damn it...Gaara glanced at Lee, expecting to have all his work undone. His lover certainly looked torn, and he was keeping a foot of distance between them in a way that gave Gaara the impression that if he advanced, Lee would step back even if it meant plowing through the wall behind him. 

"I...just don’t want them to end up alone. I don't want them to feel..."

"You are not going to be able to be with them day in and day out," Gaara pointed out logically. "You'll have to leave them with someone sooner or later. You said they'd be here for a few weeks, perhaps a couple of months. You may be on leave, but you cannot stop training for that length of time."

Lee's expressive eyebrows twitched, and Gaara knew he'd scored a point. Lee could control base impulses such as lust, but training? That was sacred. 

"It's a bit soon to leave them with a babysitter," Lee muttered, though he sounded far from convinced. "I was hoping to find someone to watch them next week, so I could get back into shape, but today-"

"Chiro stayed with me yesterday and the day before, and he'll be a good deal safer and more nurtured at Minne's," Gaara countered.

Lee appeared lost in thought, gazing over Gaara's shoulder at Chiro. Gaara glanced that way as well. Chiro had picked up the notepad and pencil he'd left there the previous day, but he wasn't drawing. He was watching them, eyes wide and liquid with alarm, as if just seeing them whispering together frightened him. Even Gaara thought the kid looked pretty small and miserable there, and he assumed the argument was lost for good. But Lee had apparently not drawn the same conclusion.

"I think you're right," the Jounin said slowly. "Not about his safety, or the nurturing bit. I'm sure you're a great, um, a great carer." Lee was such a sweet liar. Such a bad one, too. "But I think he should go to Minne's today. Chiro?"

Lee walked up to his cousin, who huddled a bit further under the window seat. Lee had to reach under it to scoop him out. 

"Chiro, Gaara's right. He and I have some things we have to do. I'd like you to go with Minne-san. Okay? I'll join you in a few hours."

Chiro took that statement like a death sentence. Lee looked at him gravely and placed a finger beneath his cousin's chin to tilt the small face up towards his own.

"I know you've been through a lot recently, but you have to be brave and face forward. You are the son of Shinobi, Chiro. You have to be strong and determined and overcome your obstacles. Can you do that for me? You'll make me very proud if you do. I'll be there as soon as I can, and we'll have a great time this afternoon. I think you'll feel better for getting out of the house and seeing people. You can even make some friends! Minne-san has two boys, and one of them is your age."

Chiro looked about as enthusiastic as a worm being pulled out of the ground by an enthusiastic blue jay. But Lee was definitely of the 'face down your fears' school, which was only considered good parenting in a Shinobi village. He wasn't going to let his cousin wallow in dread and isolation. He picked the boy up and carried him towards the front door, telling him about Courage and Youth and Spirit, and reminding him of a passage of last night's story about Gai-sensei. If this bucked Chiro up in any way, it wasn't at all visible.

Minne-san was waiting for them patiently. She was murmuring something to Aki and bouncing him up and down in her arms in a way that Gaara could have sworn would make the kid howl like a warning siren. Instead Aki burbled and almost looked happy for a change.

Lee took a couple of minutes to give Chiro the usual instructions to respect his elders, do everything Minne said, and not leave pencil marks in her home. 

"Thank you so much, Minne-san. I hope they won't be too much trouble-"

"They won't be," Minne told him firmly, reaching for Chiro's hand. She gave the boy a warm smile, and Chiro stared at her as if that wasn't what he'd expected at all. He didn't look like he trusted her fully yet, but he didn't jerk away from her touch, and he walked after her when she stepped out into the courtyard.

"Thanks," Lee repeated. "I'll be by before noon. I'm sorry, but you see, Gaa- the Kazekage and I have to work on something."

"Of course, Lee-san," Minne said politely, with a brief look back that made Lee flush. Gaara didn't know why Lee had bothered to make that one up. Minne was married to an extremely proficient Jounin - probably the only man in the village who'd met with her brother's approval - and she could read a situation well enough even without Shinobi training. Besides, she had two children, and she must have produced them somehow. She undoubtedly knew what sex was. 

Minne left, holding Chiro by the hand as she walked briskly towards the exit to the courtyard. Chiro trotted to follow, looking back several times at Lee and Gaara in what might have been a beseeching manner. Gaara ignored him. Chiro was no longer his concern for this morning. Minne would treat the boy her Kazekage had charged her to watch with utmost care. Chiro would be quite safe; it was his older cousin Gaara was concerned about. 

Lee stared at the courtyard entrance even after Minne and the children were long gone. He finally closed the door with a firm shake of his head, turned towards Gaara and smiled tenderly.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, stepping up and slipping his arms around Gaara's waist. "I've not been a very good companion these days. The kids...well, I did warn you they made life complicated. But I shouldn't let them distract me from you entirely. You're my most important person, after all." His hands were gentle and soothing as they caressed Gaara's back. "I'll have to go to Minne-san's before lunch, I can't let her carry the burden of feeding the boys all by herself, but we have a few hours where I can focus on you and take care of your needs." He nuzzled Gaara's hair. "What do you want to do? Shall I-" 

"Go upstairs, get undressed, lay face-down on the bed. I'll be there in a minute."

Gaara stepped away. Lee stayed where he was, empty arms still outstretched as he blinked in confusion. "Er...what?"

"Go upstairs, get undressed, lay face-down on the bed," Gaara repeated, since saying things twice seemed to work with Chiro. "I'll be there in a minute."

"But-but-"

"Move," Gaara chided, already halfway up the stairs.

He headed towards the bathroom to get what he needed. It took a few minutes. Lee had put a lot of the bottles and tubes and wipes away, and had shoved their original possessions all the way to the back.

When Gaara opened the door to the bedroom, Lee had partly complied and gotten as far as his underwear. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his green suit in his hands and a bewildered look on his face. 

"Gaara, what's-....huh..."

Lee's mouth stayed open, his round eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. Gaara had taken the time in the bathroom to strip. 

It appeared that Lee had forgotten what he was about to say. Gaara put the bottle down on the bedside table, pushed his stunned lover back onto the bed and crawled on top of him. Lee didn't blink or stop staring until Gaara pressed their bodies together and kissed him.

Gaara applied himself to getting as much skin contact as he could, licking Lee's mouth and slipping his tongue past Lee's teeth. He wished he was better at this. Lee could do the most amazing things to Gaara's body. Gaara tried to return the favor, but at the back of his mind he was aware that he didn't fully grasp how these things _worked_. It made him cautious about innovating, because he couldn't tell ahead of time what might arouse, or what might turn Lee off or even hurt him. He stuck to imitating Lee most of the time, and that was safe enough. Lee certainly didn't seem to mind. When Gaara pulled back, the big black eyes were still wide, but there was a nice flush on his cheeks, and his arms had wrapped around Gaara's shoulders to keep him close.

"You...you're a pain in the ass when you're trying to get your way," Lee said, but there was no anger in his expression now. Apparently Gaara had been forgiven for whatever he'd done wrong this time. 

Lee's strong arms were pulling him down, but Gaara had another aim in mind. He freed himself, straightened up onto his knees and tapped Lee on the thigh.

"Strip and lay down on your stomach."

Lee looked curious, but he didn’t ask any questions. He smiled good-humoredly instead and rolled over, moving fully onto the bed, his body lithe and powerful as he stretched out. The early-morning sun fell through the shutters and striped his body like a tiger's. Gaara thought he caught a murmur of 'kinda short foreplay' muffled into the sheets as Lee slid out of his underwear. Then Lee, propped up on his forearms, looked over his shoulder at his lover with an expression Gaara needed no effort to decipher. That expression changed when he saw the bottle that Gaara had picked up.

"No, Gaara, you don't have to do that, I'm fine, I-"

"Lie flat," Gaara murmured, uncapping the oil.

For a split second Lee looked about to argue. Then his lips twisted into a tired grin.

"I've been completely out-maneuvred, haven't I."

"Yes."

"Well, as long as that's understood..." Lee sighed and stretched out flat. He was nearing the end of his tether. Too many decisions and responsibilities, and not enough rest after his trip back from Konoha at inhuman speeds, ripping open micro-wounds in his muscles he'd always have as long as he used the Lotus to fight. Yes, it was high time Gaara took this in hand.

Gaara poured the oil direct from the bottle. It landed in graceful loops and arcs along Lee’s back. A slight shiver twitched the bronzed skin, but the room was already warm with the promise of a hot desert day to come, and Lee smiled at the cool sensation.

Gaara spread more on his hands while he watched the squiggles slowly slide down Lee’s skin, then break into droplets as his body warmed the oil. The drops rushed over the valleys and ridges of muscles and scars, licking their way from Lee’s shoulders to the small of his back. It was all rather distracting, but Gaara had a job to do. He called his wandering thoughts to order, loosened his fingers with a few business-like flicks and set to work.

Years ago, when his lover had moved in with him, Gaara hadn't known what living with Lee would entail. He’d thought it would be nothing more than cohabiting and being able to screw more conveniently. He’d never realized just how much effect it would have on him. For the better, of course, but it had still been disturbing and new and a bit daunting for a creature such as himself, when he realized how thoroughly Lee was going to move into his life and change it.

But one advantage was that Gaara was in a position to take better care of this important person. Because Lee sure didn’t. He showed some respect towards the weapon that was his body, but he pushed himself too far all the time. The very nature of his special attack, the Lotus, implied muscle damage on a regular basis. His friend Haruno teased him by insisting that the two villages should develop a brand new field of medicine for his sole benefit. Gaara failed to appreciate the joke.

Gaara didn’t know how a normal human would have dealt with this situation. Temari had implied that she’d have nagged Lee to take better care of himself, and then bitched at him until he went to the therapist when he failed. Gaara, not used to depending on others, had taken the charge onto himself. It might also have something to do with his natural and in-depth paranoia. He didn’t like the thought of someone working on Lee’s back and maybe sticking a knife into it. So when faced with Lee’s regular aches and pains and occasional damage, Gaara had borrowed some books from the clinic's library, traumatized a few medi-nin specialized in Taijutsu injuries by interrogating them on their profession, and learned how to give one hell of a good massage (as Lee had informed him on more than one occasion). The fact that they both enjoyed it was incidental, but a nice bonus.

Gaara smoothed the dribbles of oil around Lee's back and felt the skin beneath his fingertips shiver with pleasure. The Kazekage's lips twitched into a smile, one that Lee was the only person to ever see. His lover's skin felt warm beneath his hands, muscles defined without being bulky. Lee's frame was solid and powerful, built for strength and super-human speed. One look at his body and you could feel the might coiled there like a spring. And that was only the topmost layer of sand in the dune, as the Suna saying went. Lee's real power resided in his determination, in his strength of will, and in the ability to send chakra crashing through that well-balanced frame, turning it into a weapon that could give even Gaara of the Desert a hard time. Gaara felt a shiver rush down his own skin and coil up in his loins, but now was not the time for that. Later, hopefully, if Lee wasn't too worn out. But right now, Gaara had to take care of this man who meant so much to him. 

He started with the shoulders and dorsals. Lee made a noise of pleasure deep inside his throat, though Gaara's fingers were digging hard into his back. Gaara had learned that he needed to apply considerable pressure to get anywhere at all with the steel hawsers that masqueraded as muscles and tendons in Lee's highly-trained body. Gaara took his time. He screwed his thumbs into the dips between each muscle, massaging the fibers hard enough to badly bruise an ordinary person. Lee just sighed with relief, and slowly his body started to unwind beneath his lover's touch. All this would get more blood flowing through the tissues and accelerate the healing process. Satisfied, Gaara finally left the shoulders and back and descended to Lee's legs.

His fingers traced the scars he'd put on that beautiful body years ago. His thumb pressed into the jagged triangle where Lee's femur had broken skin after Gaara had shattered his left leg. Gaara felt no remorse regarding those injuries. He didn't think he could feel guilt like normal humans did; Gaara only felt the need to balance the scale, as if settling an account. He'd caused Lee a serious injury. When Lee was unable to fight Kimimaro because of it, Gaara had fought in his stead and saved Lee's life. The debt had been paid. When he'd next seen Lee, he'd not felt that he'd owed him anything, though he'd expected nothing but mistrust from the Leaf Jounin anyway. That was the way of the world.

But as it turned out, Lee had born him no grudge from the start...and it wasn't mistrust he'd shown Gaara when they'd next met.

There was no guilt as Gaara kneaded the muscles beneath those scars, no, but he did feel something. Like a breath of panic at the thought that in his madness, he'd nearly robbed himself of something so precious.

Lee's eyes had closed, there was a peaceful look on his face and his body had loosened. Gaara felt tempted to leave him like that, but there was more to do. He moved to Lee's side and gently rolled his lover over. Lee blinked but didn't say anything. He watched as Gaara massaged the front of his legs, his arms, the tight muscles in his chest and belly. 

Gaara wiped his hands on his own thighs, leaving streaks of oil. Lee's eyes widened, following that movement as if entranced. Then Gaara slowly reached up, fingers barely brushing the scarred skin until he'd reached Lee's face. He rubbed the temples and the cords of the neck, then threaded his fingers through the silky black hair, gently massaging the scalp, fingernails barely scratching.

Lee's face went a pretty pink, partly excitement and partly a bit of embarrassment. Gaara had found that this aroused his lover entirely by accident, but he was glad to know it. He could never figure out why Lee thought it was embarrassing to be sexually stimulated by fingers running over his neck and through his hair. If someone wrote a book on the ins and outs of normal human behavior, Gaara would be infinitely grateful and would read all thirty volumes of it assiduously. 

Gaara could feel Lee's erection warm and hard beneath his thigh as he leaned against his lover. The proximity and the intimacy had aroused Gaara as well. Lee tensed, rubbed his body against Gaara's slowly, very slowly as if tantalizing them both by holding back as much as he could. Fingers caressed Gaara's cheek, the curve of his ear, slipped through his hair, gripped his skull and pulled him down into a long deep kiss. 

When his mouth was released, Gaara could feel the breath flowing in and out of his lungs, fast and deep. It felt like it was washing out some of the darkness within him. Lee's hands caressed his shoulders, his back, down to his ass and thighs. The touch left trails of light and sensation in its wake. Shivers of pleasure, sparkles of energy. 

An arm slipped around his waist, keeping him clasped to Lee's body. The Jounin shifted beneath his lover's weight, reaching out to the right side of the bed.

"Don't move," Gaara ordered.

"Hm? I was just going to get the lube-" 

"I'll get it. Stay still."

Lee settled down again, smiling good-naturedly while Gaara moved off of him, crawled over to the bedside table and opened the drawer. 

At the same time his fingers fastened on the jar, he heard something. His eyes narrowed, and outside the bedroom door the Sand surged in its container like the tail of a cat lashing in annoyance as it picked up his mood. Somebody had scuffed the courtyard sand right outside the front door. Damn it...

He waited, but there was no knock. Might have been his aide, or one of the Councillors. They'd have been intercepted by his bodyguards. Not the extra men that Taidaka had posted, but the discreet circle of protection that had guarded his house for years, and allowed him to let down his defenses and indulge in such moments of pleasure. They knew that when the bedroom shutters were shut, their Kazekage did not want to be disturbed. They would run interference and head off anybody who didn't have a truly urgent need to see him. 

Lee lifted his head to see what Gaara was doing. Before he could ask a question, Gaara had his hands on him again. Lee blinked as he found himself gently but firmly rolled over onto his side, his legs bent at hips and knee and pushed forward. He didn't object, though. Gaara sat there behind him for a few seconds, looking down at him and enjoying the familiar rush that was beginning to run up and down his spine. Then he reached for the lube.

Gaara was the passive partner when they had sex as a rule. He let Lee choose positions and such. Lee was the one who had all the ideas and the predilections, and all the determination and enthusiasm that characterized him, whether he was the one taking Gaara or vice versa. Gaara had little to no sex drive if it didn't involve Lee, and he had no preferences. Top or bottom meant little to him; his needs went deeper than that. But this time he would make the choice. The Jounin had been dropped into an unusual situation and put under stress for days, and Gaara thought that Lee wouldn't mind if he was spared having to make yet another decision this morning. Gaara would take it out of his hands and make sure his lover relaxed. From the way Lee let Gaara handle him and only blinked in sleepy pleasure, Gaara thought he'd made the right call.

Lee breathed in deeply as Gaara's fingers slipped into him. He arched, and reached back towards Gaara, fingers blindly beckoning. Gaara edged closer and leaned down to rub his face against Lee's shoulder, still slick with massage oil. This was good. This was the moment when words started to mean less, and their bodies started communicating at a deeper level, a synergy they otherwise found only side by side in battle. 

He caught Lee's fingers in his mouth, then licked his way down the palm to the sensitive place near the inner elbow. Lee's skin was warm; it tasted of salt, massage oil and the faintly chemical flavor of the bands he'd wrapped his arms in earlier. The taste was familiar and arousing as it lingered on Gaara's tongue. But he used his free hand to gently push Lee's arm down again, against the sheets and out of Gaara's immediate reach, not wanting Lee to move around and get excitable and athletic again. Lee could be highly arousing when he was fucking himself on Gaara's fingers, but that was not what Gaara had in mind today. It didn't look like it was on Lee's mind either. His eyes were half-closed, almost glazed with pleasure, and the rapid rise and fall of his chest was the only movement Gaara was going to allow him.

"I'm ready," Lee whispered, and the slight buck of his hips said as much too, but Gaara put his free palm on Lee's thigh, stilling the movement, and took a few more minutes to make sure, fingers stretching Lee's anal muscles and testing their elasticity, as well as caressing and rubbing and titillating the nerve endings some more. Lee liked it hard and right away, but not today. When he was sure his lover was quite ready - and getting ever so slightly impatient, as well as massively hot and bothered - Gaara reached for the jar again, scooping up some more lube to spread on his penis. He lay down on his side behind his lover, nudging one of Lee's legs up a little and supporting it with his own. Front to back, with Lee not having to move a muscle...good. Gaara stayed propped up on one elbow, though, so he could keep his eyes on Lee's profile delineated against the sheets.

At the very limit of his perception, Gaara was aware that the person who'd been at the door hadn't actually left and was waiting. For all they mattered right now, they could be waiting on the other side of the universe and for the rest of forever.

Lee's eyelids flickered and his lips parted as he was penetrated. His fingers twitched as if they wanted to grab hold of something. His breathing hitched and his hair spilled across the sheets, black against white. Gaara drank it all in, feeling the excitement start to burn in his soul as much as the pleasure pulsed in his body.

He eased in another inch, and put the palm of his hand on Lee's thigh, stilling an incipient jerk back into his movement. Gaara wanted to do all the work today, and give Lee nothing but pleasure.

The pleasure - the purely organic one - clawed at Gaara too, pressed around his cock, curled in the small of his back, traced shivers up his spine as he pulled out and plunged in again, a bit deeper. Gaara paid it only scant heed. Lee's tongue had darted over his lips and that took up all of Gaara's attention.

His fingers caressed the solid frame, wonderfully relaxed for once. The shoulders, the ribs, the bronze skin of Lee's stomach...His thumb drifted up the line of Lee's sternum, curved around nipples like two gold coins, pinched, caressed, rubbed...He wanted to touch everything. He wanted to slide into Lee's skin. Ease in, meld and never be parted. Stronger than any who would harm them. Gaara slipped an arm around Lee's waist and pressed them close together, inexorably finishing the last thrust into his lover without pause. Lee gasped and shuddered with pleasure and the hot flesh pulsed and tightened around Gaara's sex as if Lee never wanted to let him go either.

Gaara caressed Lee's arm and covered the strong hand with his own. Fingers folded over fingers. 

"Hmmm. Move," Lee whispered, the words trickling from his mouth with barely a movement of the lips. 

Gaara moved, eyes fixed on his lover, absorbing every little sign and letting them burn in his mind and senses. Lee never wore a mask around him, but more than that, he understood, he understood Gaara, he knew what his lover needed.

Gaara had tried to masturbate once, nearly two years ago. The memory brushed him distantly as the squeeze and release around his cock reminded him of his own fingers fumbling. Lee had been gone for over three months on a complicated mission in Fire Country. Gaara had kept busy, but during the quiet moments and sleepless nights he'd missed Lee like a phantom limb. Too long, they'd been together too long; a weakness, whispered the part of Gaara that was of the desert, of blood, murder and monsters. He'd grown too used to the Jounin's presence, to his friendship, to his body. Gaara had tried touching himself, some shallow comfort in Lee's absence, but perhaps a part of him had wanted to know if he could do without his lover, satisfy himself, suffice to himself as he had for years, loving only himself.

It had been frustrating and pointless. Even imagining Lee there, Gaara had been unable to get off. He wasn't human enough; simply pumping up and down on a part of his body and hitting a few pleasure spots was not enough for him. It wasn't what he needed.

This was what he needed.

Lee threw his head back as Gaara ground into him harder, again and again and again. Mouth open, eyes blind, fingers clenched and a small moan trickling past his lips. This was what Gaara needed; to see this. To get this close to another human and share something. To feel his lover react to him and see his existence reflected in every one of Lee's movements and groans of pleasure. 

He thrust in and out fully now without restrictions. His hand brushed a path along Lee's body, up his shoulder, over his jaw. He tilted Lee's head around so he could get a better view of his flushed face. He rocked forward and dropped a kiss on the parted lips, breath brushing his mouth quick and warm, and then he leaned back again because he wanted to watch.

"Ah-..." The blush was spreading down Lee's neck and putting a kiss of pink on his nose. Gaara felt that smile twist his lips again. This...this moment was one of those that could justify an existence.

Lee's hips were twitching into Gaara's movements, but nothing as powerful as the way Lee usually rammed himself backwards in these circumstances. His Lee was normally a very physical lover, but he was indulging Gaara's silent request and letting him do what he wanted. It was a powerful feeling. Gaara's hand caressed the shivering, tensing muscles of Lee's thigh like a reward. The two lovers were breathing hard, the creaks of the bed and the small noises Lee made a counterpoint. Lee was starting to shudder every time Gaara thrust in. 

Without breaking their steady coupling, Gaara's hand touched the muscles of Lee's belly, slid down to cup the warmth of a very ready erection. His fingers lingered feather-light over wiry black hair, wrinkled skin, the veins and pulsing heat of Lee's cock, the slickness at the tip. His hand was still oily from the massage and the lube, it helped keep his motions smooth and steady as he squeezed and pressed. Lee groaned, a short, low noise deep in his throat. His eyes were screwed shut. Gaara stared at him, taking in every movement, every twitch, every proof that Lee was feeling him deep inside and that this gave him so much pleasure-

"Ah!" 

Lee threw back his head against the sheet, tensed- his face tightened, but only for a moment. The cock in Gaara's hand pulsed, slick heat spilled over his fingers. 

Lee's eyes were still closed as his hips moved in time with his lover's hand. The expression on his face...he looked like he was floating. As if the world had let him drift free, just for a moment...

His face was all Gaara could see. Ripples of pleasure, hard, almost painful around his cock, up his spine, tightening the spring in his loins- the air pounding in his lungs was rich with Lee's heat- Lee-

Gaara slid his hand down Lee's arm again. He jerked helplessly as the climax rushed through him. Fingers grasped his, squeezed. He gasped, pressed hard into the warm back, buried his nose in Lee's shoulder and joined him in that moment...

Lee was breathing slow and deep. It caused the muscles in his back to tighten away from Gaara's chest, letting a mean little breath of cool air slip into the gap, before the next inhale brought them back into contact again. Gaara slid his arm around Lee's waist and pulled them more tightly together. His other arm had ended up beneath his body and was complaining about this mildly, but Gaara was in his happy place now and really couldn’t be bothered with anything physical. 

What I said earlier wasn’t entirely untrue, he thought. He needed this, but so did I.

Lee made a happy little mumbling noise. Gaara lifted his head just enough to see a slice of Lee's profile, the eyes heavy with sleep and released tension, the flush on his face fading. 

Gaara kissed the nape of the strong neck and whispered those stupidly short words, no more than a handful of letters between them. He'd learned to say them a couple of years back, they pleased Lee so much, but Gaara was still not human enough to fully understand them, since he totally failed to see how something so short and simple could ever convey the pleasure, the pain, the worry, the joy, the light and the darkness, the closeness and the differences that Lee had brought into his life. 

"Hmmm, I love you too," Lee murmured with a sleepy smile, eyes already closed. 

"Rest now," Gaara whispered, leaning back just enough to let his limp sex slip out of his lover, then closing the distance between them again. He grabbed a bit of sheet, jerking it out from under the mattress and messing up the bedding. Lee was half asleep by the time Gaara had swiped up the spills.

Gaara watched him drift off. It was not even ten o'clock yet. Lee would have a couple of hours to sleep before he'd have to go to Minne's and take care of his duties. Gaara was half-tempted to let Lee sleep the rest of the day and not wake him up at noon, but that would leave Lee angry with him all over again, and it would injure Lee's sense of responsibilities. 

The next two hours would ideally be spent right where he was, wrapped up in his lover, watching dreams chase each other across Lee's expressive face, listening to the gentle breathing, the steady heart beat, and basking in the warmth of Lee's body. Gaara would have liked nothing better. But he hadn't felt the person at the door leave. He might have been too distracted, but then again maybe they were still waiting and it was a fairly urgent matter after all. He would have a hard time resting if he didn't check first. Duty called. 

Gaara got up, remembered to slip on his yukata, and headed out as silently as an elite Shinobi could. Though from the way Lee had just started to snore softly, Gaara could have donned chain mail and stomped out of the room and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Lee was an amazingly heavy sleeper for a ninja. 

He hauled the gourd up by the strap to swing from his shoulder, and descended the stairs. He could hear a voice outside. Gaara went to the front door and opened it silently. His aura was hidden as always, but the man sitting on the ground in the courtyard still shot to his feet and spun around. He wouldn't be much of a bodyguard if Gaara could catch his back that easily.

It was one of his regular shadows, the four ANBU whose presence at the outskirts of his perceptions had become familiar over the years. What was much more unusual was to get a glimpse of the man’s face, especially with that chagrined expression on it. Chiro was sitting at his feet on the sandy ground of the courtyard, holding and examining the mask that should have been covering the ANBU's mortified face.

“Um- Kazekage-sama, I apologize-“ The man looked torn between saluting and tearing the mask away from the child. 

“What’s he doing here?” Gaara asked, cutting to the chase.

Chiro looked up at the sound of Gaara’s voice. He jumped to his feet, fitted the mask onto his face and trotted over to the Kazekage a bit haphazardly. The mask was too big, he couldn’t match both eyes to the holes, which were nothing but fine slits anyway. It took practice and a sense of chakra to be able to move and fight with the mask on, but Chiro seemed to be game to try. He stopped right in front of Gaara and looked up at him through the mask.

Gaara gave the ANBU the kind of heavy look that requested an immediate explanation. Then he tempered it a bit, since it appeared his subordinate was on the cusp of succumbing to utter humiliation as it were. Gaara reached down, took the mask away from Chiro and tossed it to its owner, who gratefully caught it and put it on. Chiro looked at the mask regretfully, the ghost of a pout on his features, but he didn’t say anything.

“Ah, Taidaka-san brought him back. She wanted to drop him off with Lee-san, but I informed her you were not to be disturbed,” the guard said. “Apparently the kid- Chiro- um, she was worried. He was just sitting in a corner, refused to speak or move, he looked really very upset. He...seems better now."

There was strangled embarrassment in the ANBU's voice, since both men were looking down at the object of the discussion who'd wandered back over to him and was staring up at the mask hopefully. He was quite a far way away from upset.

"She wanted to talk to Lee-san- apologize- but she had to go back, a neighbor was watching the other children for her. I said I’d bring you Chiro as soon as you were fini- available. Ah, I apologize about the mask, sir, but it was distressing him. I- he was a lot calmer after I took it off.” 

Of course the mask would frighten him. The cold blank surface was meant to spark fear in the heart of the hunted, and Chiro thought he was on the ANBU’s hit list as it were. Gaara didn’t mind having his bodyguard take the mask off if that stopped the boy from getting hysterical. The courtyard was safe, the man had been aware of his surroundings, and Chiro wasn’t in any position to recognize the ANBU's identity or compromise Suna's security with that information. 

What worried Gaara was something more intangible. The mask had frightened Chiro. But when the guard had removed it, Chiro had taken it from him and put it on...

Chiro turned around slowly as he felt Gaara's gaze. He looked a bit apprehensive, but when Gaara stood aside and motioned towards the door, he trotted past him, heading towards the study.

Gaara nodded, both thanks and dismissal, and his bodyguard disappeared in a relieved puff of air. The Kazekage walked through the reception room to his den, where he wasn't surprised to find Chiro ensconced beneath the window seat. Chiro was looking around slowly. If he was searching for his pencil and pad, he must have left them at Minne's. Stupid brat, Gaara thought, but the reflection was only tired and resigned. He dropped the gourd off in a corner and went to sit down at his desk.

"Chiro." 

The boy glanced up, huddling a bit and examining Gaara as if to determine how cross he was.

"What happened?"

Chiro stared at him blankly, but if he thought that was going to get him out of answering the question...Gaara stared right back without blinking until Chiro finally winced and looked away. The boy got to his feet and walked over to the desk until he could slouch against its side, staring at the floor. 

"What happened?" Gaara repeated.

Chiro stuck his fingers in his mouth and proceeded to look like a whipped puppy. That had zero effect on the Kazekage. 

"Boy, you stayed with me for two days. You had considerably more reasons to be frightened then. What. Happened."

Chiro cringed and mumbled something. Gaara only caught the word 'blame'. 

"Minne took you in. She came to pick you up earlier and she was nice to you. Why do you think she'd blame you?"

That closed-off look was hovering in Chiro's eyes. Gaara felt as if something slender was slipping through his fingers. He resisted the urge to petrify the child with a deadly unblinking stare that would wring the reason out of him. Chiro hadn't looked happy going away with Minne's, but neither had he seemed all that freaked out. What could have happened at Minne's to-

"You met her children," Gaara said with sudden understanding.

He waited until Chiro nodded.

"You thought they would treat you like the ones in Konoha."

Chiro nodded again almost immediately. Gaara had reached him in the gathering silence before it could fully form around Chiro again. 

"They don't know about your father," Gaara said bluntly, ignoring the boy's flinch. "You have no reason to be worried about them."

"They'll know," Chiro whispered, his voice barely audible.

"How would they? Even Minne doesn't know."

That earned him a blank look. Chiro and logical deduction were still only nodding acquaintances. 

After a long minute during which it appeared that Chiro was trying to figure it out, the boy concluded: "Somebody would tell them."

"Who?" was the implacable question, but Chiro had an answer ready.

"The man with the mask."

Gaara frowned. "The one who watched you outside the door just now?"

"No." Chiro's face suddenly lit up a bit. "He was nice. Can I play with him again?"

"No. He’s got work to do. You mean the man in the mask who stopped you the other day, when you ran away."

"I didn’t run away," Chiro said, staring at Gaara's knee.

"What were you doing?"

"...Don't know..."

"How could you not know?"

Chiro gave him that big-eyed, bewildered look that finally convinced Gaara that children before the age of six would be incapable of rational thought - and impulse control - if their very lives depended on it. 

"What did the man say?" Gaara asked. Chiro must mean Taidaka. His presence would be more than enough to scare a child. He was enough to scare most adults.

Chiro was silent, but this time it wasn't the silence of an obdurate brat. It was the silence that lived inside Chiro's head, the one that both protected him and isolated him from the outside world. Taidaka had probably asked him about his father. That'd be a subject Chiro would have a hard time broaching for quite some time. 

"Chiro," Gaara said in the hard, measured monotone with which he ordered men into battle, "that man would not have told those children anything. He works for me. He follows my orders, and I have ordered him to say nothing."

Chiro blinked and looked Gaara full in the face for the first time since the conversation started. Gaara decided not to mention that 'the man' was the children's uncle. That'd just confuse the issue at this point. Even if they'd been his sons instead of his nephews, Taidaka would not have divulged information his Kazekage had asked him to keep secret.

"The children in Konoha might have learned the facts from their parents, but we're in Suna. We're hundreds of miles away from those people. The children here don't know anything about you. You have no need to be afraid of Minne's boys."

"I wasn't afraid of them," Chiro said with a frown. "One of them is smaller than me. And the other one has glasses."

Gaara tried to fit this into some kind of logic and failed. "If you're not afraid of them, then you'll go back to Minne's tomorrow, and you'll behave." Gaara decided he could stand watching the boy for another afternoon. His workload had returned to normal and he could make up for lost time at night.

"...I don't want them saying things."

"Saying what? I told you they won't know."

Chiro looked unconvinced. 

Gaara rested his chin on his fist and examined the boy. "Don't you want to play with those children? Make friends?" he couldn't help but ask. Gaara would have killed to have friends when he’d been Chiro’s age. _Killed_ being the operative term, unfortunately.

Chiro shook his head, though Gaara thought there had been a second of hesitation.

This was a problem. Lee and Gaara would not be able to watch him continuously. They had to work, train, go on missions. They both had busy schedules that would not accommodate a child trailing after them. Besides, Gaara had the feeling Lee had been right earlier. Having the kid stay under the window seat for weeks was not a solution. 

"Those children won't bother you," Gaara said, inspiration stirring, "because you are under my protection." 

Chiro looked up quickly. 

"I'm the Kazekage. In Suna, I'm as important as your Hokage, and you are my guest. That protects you." 

"...Really?"

"Yes," Gaara answered, hoping this was true. He wasn't really sure how children would behave, really. Chiro had taught him that logic was not always their strong suit. He remembered the children he'd interacted with when he was young. They were probably right to fear him in retrospect, but in that case they should have either toadied up to him or else given him a very wide berth. Ignoring him while he was only a few feet away, or calling him a monster to his face, or telling him to stay away, even throwing rocks at him on one lamentable - and never thereafter repeated - occasion...Kids didn't seem to have good risk assessment faculties. 

He wasn't sure what the village children thought of him now. Was he their bogeyman, like he was in Konoha? Or did they hold him in the same wary respect as their parents did? Was he the Kazekage in their eyes, or was he Gaara of the Desert?

But Chiro didn't need his uncertainties. The boy needed his protection. The protection of the scariest monster in the village, so much more dangerous than those kids at Minne's...Gaara still didn't get that part, but he thought it must make sense in Chiro's head, the same way justifying his existence by snuffing out others had once made sense in Gaara's.

"The people in this village respect me and obey my orders," Gaara said slowly, an idea taking shape, half-formed in the darkness that Chiro partly shared. "And they're afraid of me. You know that."

Chiro nodded promptly.

"So if you tell those children that you have my protection, do you think they'll dare bother you?"

This was definitely not the tack that Lee would choose, Gaara was sure. So much for being a 'good carer'. But Gaara knew fear, and he knew power, and he knew how to get people to leave him alone. If that was what Chiro wanted.

"What about if they tell the ANBU where to find me?" Chiro said, and there was a hint of challenge in his voice. This pleased Gaara for some reason.

"The ANBU are not hunting you down," he stated, but then his eyes narrowed and he added, "and they're afraid of me too."

That seemed to impress Chiro no end. He grasped the edge of the desk with his fingers and inched close, the look on his face open and completely trustful. Strange kid...

"I was created to be Suna's greatest weapon. The other villages are afraid of me." They certainly slapped quite a few travel restrictions on him when he visited other countries. "The people of Konoha respect me, and some of them are my friends, but they still fear me. Lee is the only exception, and he lives here with me." And Naruto, but he didn't count. Even someone as misinformed and traumatized as Chiro was not about to believe that Naruto was capable of hunting down and killing a four-year-old. 

"So if I tell them that you protect me, they'll leave me alone?" Chiro asked.

"Minne's boys? Yes. But if you don't say anything and just be nice, they'll let you play with them instead," Gaara found himself saying.

Chiro looked at him dubiously.

Gaara hesitated, a rare event. Why was he doing this? For Lee? For this kid who'd brought Gaara nightmares and bad memories and a faint hint of fellow feeling? For the memory of a desperately lonely young monster...? He'd never wanted to interact with the children. They were Lee's responsibility, and Gaara would have helped him with that as much as he could, the way Lee helped him, but Gaara had rationally assumed the best way he could help was to stay well the hell away and avoid hurting them or scaring them. But Chiro just didn't seem to follow the plan. 

That didn't mean that Gaara should interact with him now, of course. Chiro's best hope was to get over his trauma and return to normal, and Gaara had never really grasped what that was. He'd do more harm than good. Gaara's nature was cautious, geared to reacting to what hurt him and not reaching out to others. Unlike Lee. 'It's better to act and get it wrong than never act at all!' his lover always declared, and if he'd not had that motto, he'd never have dared to kiss Gaara in the first place, with the elements crashing around them and madness screaming through the air...

"Tell you what," Gaara said slowly. "Give Minne's boys a chance. Play with them. They'll rag you a bit, but that's to be expected." Shinobi raised wolves, not lambs, and a certain amount of rough play and testing went on at all age. "I think that if you let them, they'll be your friends. But if they're not, if they try to blame you for what your father did, then show them this."

In the far corner, the cork popped out of the gourd. Chiro's eyes went wider than soup plates as a veil of sand wound its lazy way across the room and into Gaara's palm. The boy didn't run away or freak out though. Maybe Gaara should be worried about that, but instead he felt a distant flicker of approval. The kid had strong fears, but he wasn't a coward for all that. 

The small pack of Sand curled, compacted and solidified in his hand into a gourd smaller than half of Chiro's palm. Gaara held it out, and Chiro took it without any hesitation, eyes still wide.

"If they harass you, show them that, and tell them that you are under the protection of Gaara of the Desert. They might not be your friends after that, but they won't dare hurt you either."

Chiro stared at the miniature container in awed silence. Gaara fished around his desk drawers, then went to look near the weapon rack. He found a leather cord binding a few shuriken together. He stuck the metal blades into the wood of the rack, took the gourd back and knotted the cord around the bend. He hung it around Chiro's neck, under the t-shirt. 

"Now you can go to Minne's tomorrow," Gaara told him.

Chiro glanced up at him quickly, but there must have been something about Gaara's demeanor that informed him that 'I don't want to' would be a very bad option at this point, so he nodded and felt at the Sand beneath his top. 

"Good." Gaara picked up an empty scroll and a charcoal pencil and motioned towards the window seat. Chiro obediently took the drawing materials from him and went to amuse himself, occasionally drawing out the gourd and examining it. Gaara unfurled a letter he was writing to Tsunade and set to work, though at the back of his mind he was trying to figure out what he was going to tell Lee tonight when the Jounin undressed his small cousin to give him his daily wash and saw what hung around his neck.


	9. Day 6 - 6AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pace is going to change a little; time accelerates, the rhythm slows. These are more timestamps than an integrated chapter. Watch out for the dates at the headers of each section. This is just to show a quiet time as Lee and Gaara's lives slowly return to normal, integrating the kids in. Think of it as the calm before a brief but violent summer storm...

Day 6 - 6AM

 

Gaara moved his arm up in a parry that was too ritualized to be effective against an actual kunai. Then he turned, joined his hands together and pushed away in one smooth gesture. The hard part wasn’t the movement; it was keeping his arms and body at the exactly correct speed and angle. The purely physical concentration required felt cleansing to Gaara, who would be the first to admit that he usually thought too much.

He and Lee moved through the courtyard, bare feet brushing the sand at the same time, moves perfectly synchronized. It had been two years since Gaara had let Lee cajole, badger and challenge him into joining him in his morning Taijutsu warm-up. As Lee had promised, it had increased his muscle mass and fitness levels, and it was a good way of capping off a night working at his desk. On a deeper level, the way they moved together in the pure silence of the early morning gave Gaara a sense of closeness with his lover not unlike that which they’d shared in bed the day before. 

A half-turn, accelerating into a kick, then back into a ritualized block. Lee’s arms swept together, parted, melded into a strike with the grace of a bird taking wing. The gesture was capped by a perky thumbs-up and a brilliant smile that seemed to reflect the early-morning sunshine. Gaara gamely made the same gesture at the same time, as he always did. He was almost entirely certain that this was not part of the formal routine established by Taijutsu masters over the centuries, but he didn’t call Lee on it or break the harmony of their matching movements. He didn’t try to imitate the smile, though; he didn’t think his facial muscles could move that way.

There was a scrape off to the left as the door was pushed open wider. Chiro, dressed in his pyjamas, halted on the doorstep and looked startled. 

“Good morning, Chiro,” Lee murmured without breaking the flow of their movements. “Did you sleep well?” 

Chiro gave a sleepy mumble. As far as Gaara could tell, the kid had had another nightmare, but not one where he'd screamed the roof off so that probably counted as an average night, if not a good one.

“Be with you in a minute," Lee added, turning and punching the air. "Then I’ll make us all a power breakfast! Tofu blended with carrots and ginseng, poured over rice porridge and milk. Sounds good?”

Chiro continued to stare at them in fascination and didn't answer, which meant he was taking the menu better than Kankuro ever had. The puppeteer had stayed with Gaara and Lee last year, after both his hands had been injured by an opponent's bloodline ninjutsu causing a power surge on Kankuro's chakra strings. He’d gotten well again with remarkable alacrity, which Gaara attributed to the great care Lee had shown Gaara’s brother while he was under their roof.

"What are you doing?" Chiro finally asked. 

“The Lotus Seed kata,” Lee said over his shoulder as he drew himself up for the finishing move. After doing this for half a lifetime, he could still talk while keeping his breathing strong and serene. “An old tradition that Gai-sensei passed down to me. How about you, Chiro, did you have a daily martial art routine in your- before you came here?”

Chiro shook his head after a few seconds of reflection. 

“Really? Well, that won’t do,” Lee announced, after letting out the last breath from his centre and letting his arms go loose. “Do you want me to teach you a simpler one? In the evenings, perhaps,” he added quickly as if he could feel Gaara’s dark scowl drill him between the shoulder blades. Their morning routine was sacred, and it had been sufficiently disrupted these past few weeks.

"Is it like fighting?" Chiro asked, craning his neck to look up at his cousin until Lee crouched near him.

"A bit. It strengthens your muscles and teaches you how to breathe."

"I know how to breathe," the boy said with a frown.

"Ah, but not this way. This way will give you more power and energy!"

Chiro looked intrigued at the prospect. "Oh. Can you teach me how to fight, too?" 

He couldn't have made Lee happier if he'd given him three birthdays bundled together. Lee picked him up and toted him off towards the kitchen, enthusiastically detailing training plans. Chiro's attitude towards Lee had improved, Gaara reflected as he followed them. The boy was getting over Lee's superficial resemblance to his father, and was now responding as Gaara thought he should to Lee's boundless warmth, energy and affection. 

 

Day 6 - 8AM

 

"You didn't have to come with us," Lee said, though Gaara could read him well enough to guess that Lee was actually rather pleased he had. 

Gaara didn't answer. He wasn't sure why he'd decided to walk them to Minne's. But it might be prudent to be there when Chiro confronted the other kids. Gaara’s presence might influence the outcome. He wanted this to go well for Lee's sake. The Jounin would be the one on the firing line today if the boy still refused to interact and curled up into withdrawal again. Gaara was running a check on the outer defenses with Kankuro and a couple of senior Jounin today, and they'd be going at high speeds if they wanted to finish before this evening. He couldn't carry a child with him. Chiro would just have to tough it out.

Minne welcomed them into her home, immediately scooping Aki from Lee's arms and chatting with him in some semi-human language the kid seemed to grasp. Gaara noted how her eyes darted to Chiro a few times. He must have worried her with yesterday's stunt, even though Lee had assured her numerous times yesterday afternoon that it wasn't her fault and that Chiro would handle himself better from now on.

"These are my boys, Matto and Yuudai," Minne said, as she led them into the kitchen. "Matto, hurry up, you have to go soon. The Academy bell will be ringing in twenty minutes."

Her two children were seated at the table. They'd both frozen over their breakfast and were staring wide-eyed at Gaara. The older boy didn't answer his mother, just swallowed once. Chiro could have been invisible as Minne shepherded him to the table to join them. 

Chiro sat down without any overt signs of fear. He had his hand on the small bump beneath his t-shirt. He'd worn the gourd around his neck continuously, even last night when he went to sleep. Lee had, of course, been rather surprised to see it. Gaara had said something curt about it being a present for the boy. It was a lamentable excuse. He still couldn't believe Lee hadn't asked him any more questions. His lover had just looked at him and said 'oh, right' with a smile and an expression Gaara couldn't identify. Gaara still wasn’t sure what that reaction meant, but apparently Lee didn’t mind and wasn't about to dig, so neither would Gaara.

The older boy finally glanced around and looked Chiro up and down. Chiro faced the look and stared right back. The other boy turned away without a word and stirred his rice, trying to look at Gaara through his bangs. Chiro straightened up, and gave the boy's glasses - broken at one stem and held together with tape - an odd look that might have been triumphant. 

It was a world of social interaction that Gaara had seen from a distance a long time ago, but he had never been a part of it and never would be. This bit, Chiro would have to manage on his own.

"I have to go," he said, turning towards the door.

"Have a good day!" Lee said, looking up from something cooking on Minne's stove. 

"I’ll watch over them well, sir,” Minne stated with a firm nod, and Gaara wondered if Lee was part of that package in her mind. 

Gaara nodded back and took his leave without any other form of courtesy, which everybody in Suna was used to by now. He was barely out the kitchen door when two young voices broke into a hushed babble. Gaara ignored them, and Minne's stern order to shut up and finish their breakfast and not embarrass her before their guests. He had his own duties to attend to.

 

Day 6 - 6PM

 

"-and did you know that you're not supposed to have house-plants at ground level? Not that we do, of course, Just my cacti, and they're on a shelf. But apparently babies at the crawling stage will chew on any leaves they can reach, and it can make them sick. He...Aki wouldn't chew on a cactus, would he?"

“Not more than once,” Gaara said without glancing up from his map.

"They should be out of his reach until he's older and knows better," Lee said, though he didn't sound all that convinced. "I will never be able to thank Minne-san enough for her instructions. She's an excellent mother. A- a- a font of wisdom and a youthful, determined fighter! Chiro likes her too, now that he's gotten to know her. Isn't that right, Chiro?"

"She said I draw well." This apparently meant 'yes'. Lee gave everyone in Gaara's den a proud smile. 

Lee had popped into the study five minutes after Gaara’s return, and virtually grilled him on his day. His eyes had a fervent, over-bright sheen as he asked for detail after detail about a very routine check of the surroundings. It hadn't been that long since the kids were here, but the Jounin was already going stir-crazy, Gaara concluded. Watching the kids and trying to keep them alive and healthy while knowing nothing of their physiology had been stressful, but hardly provided the adrenaline rushes required to keep Lee happy. If he stayed shackled to that crib any longer, he was going to get cabin fever. 

Gaara scribbled a note to Tetsuyo to arrange an occasional day in the schedule where Gaara could watch Chiro. Aki could stay at Minne’s. Other sitters could be arranged as well, leaving Lee some time to train to exhaustion and get this out of his system. It was only for the near future; the kids would be back in Konoha soon and Lee would be back on the job.

"-Chiro and Yuudai, Minne's youngest, played a bit. Then Yuudai went to play with the neighbor's two girls, but Chiro stayed with us. He really likes to draw, don't you, Chiro."

Chiro didn't answer or pay attention. He was sitting on one of the cushions beneath the window seat. Lee had put Aki in front of him, and Chiro was dangling a small colored ball on a string just out of his brother’s reach. Aki was trying to grab it, and making ominous whining noises. Chiro finally gave his brother the toy and looked up. "Can you teach me how to fight?"

"Oh, right! That's a long, arduous road, Chiro, but one where your full courage and determination can burst forth! Why don't we go outside and take the first step."

Evening fell as Lee showed his young cousin some very simple forms out in the courtyard. Gaara was working at his desk, but he could hear the lesson's progress through the open window. Chiro interrupted at one point to ask when they were going to start fighting, but he seemed to otherwise take to the lessons with solemn interest. Aki watched them for awhile from the pen, which Lee had put in the yard. Then the baby started playing with something he’d reached for between the bars of his crib and picked up from the ground, and would hopefully not turn out to be too dirty or venomous. 

Gaara fetched some tea, and on the way back eyed the notepad abandoned beneath the window seat. Even up close, he couldn’t really tell what Chiro had been drawing. Something with a lot of spikes. Gaara idly bent over and flipped the pages back. The drawing Chiro had done at Minne’s was still full of geometrical figures. Well, if this was a habit that calmed the child down, there was nothing to do about it. When Gaara was young, his soothing habits had consisted of muttering to the Sand and occasionally killing people, so if all Chiro required for comfort was to draw squares on paper, they'd gotten off lightly.

Outside the open window, Chiro finished the first three forms by himself. Lee praised him loudly - very loudly, Gaara was sure the ANBU discreetly stationed around the house were aware of just what a stellar performance the kid had given. Chiro’s frown of concentration faded, he looked pleased and he almost smiled. 

“Hey guys, whatcha up to?”

“Hello! Gaara, Kankuro’s here! We were learning the first steps of the Taijutsu teaching forms. Chiro, show Kankuro what you learned.”

Gaara glanced back out the window. His brother had just the one puppet scroll on his back, and he'd changed out of his uniform and washed off the paint, so it was a casual visit. Chiro had dived behind Lee at the appearance of a stranger. He did not seem to recognize Kankuro’s voice or name, but there was something he recognized when he spotted it in Kankuro’s hand.

“Karasu!” 

“Here you go, kid. Present for ya. I built a new model, this one was out of date.”

While Lee tried to get Chiro to tear himself away from the puppet and thank the Sand Jounin properly and formally, Kankuro looked around and spotted Gaara through the open window. 

“Hey, bro. Comms gave me a message for you.”

“Urgent?”

“Nah, it’s from Temari. She's heard the news by now, 'course, and she wrote to say that you guys are nuts and she wants to know Everything. With pictures.” Kankuro lifted one page off a small sheaf of papers and scanned the next. “Then she gives you some pointers on how not to screw up, as well as the names of some girlfriends of hers who can help out and give you tips. She also says she’ll be home earlier than expected. Ouch. She seems to think you guys can defend a village and run S-rank missions, and not know how to change a diaper or keep a four-year-old out of trouble. Chicks, I tell you. I know we’re guys, but how hard can it be, right?”

Lee laughed weakly. Gaara thought it wiser not to comment. He was counting on using his brother to watch the boys at least once in the coming week, and the Kazekage was too good a strategist to risk scaring off a potential resource. 

"Want to stay and have dinner with us?" Lee asked Kankuro, apparently keen to change the subject

Kankuro looked at Lee out of the corner of his eye. "Who's cooking?" 

"The admin cafeteria is delivering soba and tempura."

"Oh, okay, I'll stay if you guys want," Kankuro said, already swinging his puppet scroll down to the ground. Chiro was showing his new toy to his brother who was squealing and trying to get at it through the bars of the crib. The courtyard had never been this noisy.

"We can eat outside. Hey, you guys want to practice forms until the food gets here? I’m teaching Chiro.”

“Practice first-year forms?” Kankuro gave Lee an odd look. Like Gaara, he appeared to conclude that Lee needed some exercise, badly. “I’ll pass, but you guys go ahead and I’ll sit back and admire.”

“Gaara?”

Gaara looked back at his desk, maps scattered about it. But with all the noise and activity outside, he wasn't going to get any work done this evening anyway. He could make up for it later, when everybody had gone to bed. And...there was a place for him outside that open window. Lee, Kankuro, Temari's long letter full of sisterly advice, even the two noise-making machines to a lesser extent...like ropes tangling around him, pulling him out of inertia. Because sometimes it seemed to be easier to live for those bonds and fight for them, kill for them, exist for them, than sit back and let himself enjoy them, dare to let them truly touch him...

But with Lee giving him that hopeful grin, and his brother that smirk with 'come on already, brat' plastered all over it, it looked like he really didn't have a choice. He nodded and turned away from the desk, heading towards the courtyard door.

 

 

Day Twenty-Five - 7AM

 

Lee was visibly ticking off a list in his head. His index finger pointed successively at what Gaara, who'd never had to use such equipment in his life, had mentally termed the Small Weights, the Big Weights and the Really Big Weights. Added to that were two jerrycans of water in the backpack with a couple of towels, a desert survival kit and an enthusiastic letter from Gai-sensei describing a complicated Taijutsu move he'd recently mastered.

"Right! I'm ready! Are you sure you two will be fine?" Lee asked, as he'd asked the previous times as well, even though it was obvious he was three seconds away from bolting out the door on a wave of eager enthusiasm.

"We'll be fine," Gaara answered, a slight stress on the 'we' as he looked askance at Lee's overburdened backpack and the host of weights.

"Excellent! Chiro, be good!”

Chiro yawned. He was sitting on the camp bed that Lee had insisted they set up in the study, since the Jounin could name at least three muscle groups that were not going to be happy with Gaara and his habit of sleeping on a cushion in a corner. It looked like the boy was two minutes away from falling asleep again, which meant he wasn't going to be much of a bother for the next hour or so. Aki was shouting upstairs in his crib. Lee was going to pick him up along with all the rest of his burden and drop him off at Minne's on his way to the training grounds.

"Can I use those?" Chiro said, pointing sleepily at the biggest dumb bells just as Lee took one bold step forward, the pack swaying.

It took a couple of minutes to explain to the kid that a single one of those weights would nail him to the ground. After a promise to provide some appropriate to Chiro's age and growing stamina, Lee detoured by the bedroom and was then out the door, Aki in his arms and laughing at all the jangling noises coming from his cousin's back.

Gaara scanned his schedule- and felt Chiro's gaze settle on the back of his neck. He didn't glance around. Eventually the kid hopped down from the camp bed, walked up to the desk and gave Gaara that drill-like stare that always preceded the first questions.

"Could Lee kill anybody in the world?"

"No," Gaara answered. "There are a few who could beat him. Not many, though."

"You can?"

"Yes. I defeated him once already a few years ago."

Chiro's eyes widened.

"We've both improved since then. I would win eventually. I have more chakra. But it would be difficult and dangerous, even for me. He’s one of the best Taijutsu masters of his generation." 

Chiro absorbed this information like a sponge.

"If I train hard, could I beat anybody in the world?" he finally asked. Chiro was taking his training as seriously as a four-and-a-half-year-old could be expected to, to Lee's pride and delight. The boy wasn't all that good at it, but Lee assured him that it was a matter of determination and spirit and hard work, and Chiro seemed about as easy to discourage as his cousin when it came to that. 

"No. There is always someone stronger, or an alliance that can bring you down."

"Can I..."

There was a rare hesitation, and Chiro's gaze darted around the study, suddenly intent on avoiding Gaara's. 

"...If I train really hard, can I beat you?"

"By yourself? No." 

Strangely enough, that seemed to reassure the boy. He trotted back to the camp bed without a word. Five minutes later, when Gaara glanced back, the kid was fast asleep. But he'd have other questions later. It had become something of a pattern. He never asked them where others could hear, particularly Lee, which was good because some of those questions would surely upset the Jounin. Chiro's questions were occasionally gruesome, or bizarre, or repetitious, or things Gaara saw no point to or had to struggle to answer. Gaara answered them nonetheless. He didn’t see why he shouldn’t, if he could and had the time. That too had become part of the pattern. Besides, a few answers would keep Chiro quiet and content for hours at a stretch.

 

Day Twenty-Five - Noon

 

Lee had made some onigiri for his packed lunch; he would be eating them right about now, out in the nearby desert where he was training. Gaara hadn't been surprised to find that his lover had made enough extra for the two of them as well. He'd probably made even more and taken them to Minne's house as thanks for watching Aki. Lee's nature was to go overboard with everything.

Chiro bit off a corner, a mouthful that was almost too big for him. His appetite had really picked up in the last two weeks, though he was eating nowhere near as much as Lee could knock down. 

"Finish what you have in your mouth," Gaara said without glancing up, unable to make out the question through the rice and the mumble.

Chiro swallowed noisily and pointed at his glass. 

“Can I have some more?” Then, as if Lee’s spectre had suddenly materialized behind him, impressive eyebrows drawn into disapproving lines- “Please?”

Gaara poured the orange juice without a word, and silence once more fell in the kitchen. Chiro finished his first rice ball and picked up a second. It turned out on inspection to contain pickled daikon, so that ended up on Gaara's plate and Chiro went fishing again, all with a minimum of words.

Chiro wasn’t as loud as the kids who played around Suna and whose habits Gaara was finally starting to notice. He was getting a bit more boisterous around Lee. He’d tell the Jounin things that happened during the day, ask questions on fighting, or request a story about Gai-sensei. But with Gaara, Chiro was mostly silent. Gaara didn’t know why. It didn’t feel like fear anymore. 

The kitchen clock ticked. Gaara's mind was on the afternoon's schedule and a list of tasks for his aide. But he noticed how Chiro's chewing had slowed to a halt. The kid was staring at his glass of juice as if it contained a poison he had to drink. When Chiro opened his mouth, Gaara knew what was coming. Chiro’s questions went from the perfectly innocuous to others that dug deep into the pain, questions that seemed to physically hurt him. Yet when he was with Gaara, the kid asked the questions anyway. Gaara still hadn't decided if this was brave, stupid or the sign of incipient insanity. He was probably not one to judge.

"Is mommy really watching over me, like Lee says?" Chiro finally whispered into his plate.

Gaara resignedly took a bite of onigiri to go with his slice of tormented metaphysical question. 

"I don't know," he said after he swallowed.

Chiro looked at him with that white, pinched expression. Sometimes 'I don't know' was acceptable: Gaara really didn't know why deserts were there, or if dogs thought like people did, or if there existed a boy somewhere who ‘was stronger than anybody in the world'. But when it was one of the darker questions, Chiro took ‘I don’t know’ as an evasion, and in his mind evasions seemed to be the slippery slope to untruth.

Gaara found his gaze dwelling on the gourd propped up against the kitchen counter. Though he understood the mechanics of the automatic defence by now, the question of whether it could have been sparked by his own mother’s spirit remained deep at the back of his mind like a childhood scar. Gaara truly didn't know the answer to that question, though he’d concluded some time ago that if the dead did watch over the living, it was better if they did not interfere, especially with their own agenda.

"Maybe she is. But I think Lee was just trying to make you feel better.”

Chiro stared at his plate until Gaara threw the leftovers away and dropped the dishes in the sink. Chiro might only be four and a half, but he had to know, he had to have _realized_ that if he'd asked Lee that question he'd have gotten a whole better answer. A nicer one at any rate. He always asked Gaara instead. All questions and any questions, the weird questions and the worst questions, the only exception being any questions about his father, though Gaara expected those to crop up again sooner or later. Reflecting one night on the darkness of his own past, the thought had come to Gaara that perhaps Chiro needed the truth to affirm his existence; something solid and stable he could rely on, and the more feared and painful the answer was, the more it could be counted on as being the full truth. Maybe that’s why he only trusted Gaara with those questions, trusted the monster who wouldn’t try to spare him with kind lies.

Then again Gaara could be completely wrong about all of it, and the kid just had a surfeit of bizarre curiosity.

Gaara was somewhat concerned that this attitude of the boy's wasn’t healthy, but Chiro’s entire situation wasn’t healthy and there was nothing Gaara could do about that. And he certainly wasn’t about to lie about it. There was nothing else to do. Lee loved Chiro, and Gaara told him the truth, and they both protected him and gave him a shelter. If that wasn’t enough, then the kid was screwed. 

But Gaara didn't think so. Half an hour later, Chiro was outside in the courtyard bouncing a ball against a wall and then running after it with utter dedication, and he seemed to have forgotten all about the latest answer. Gaara had come to two further conclusions when it came to his observation of small human children. They were amazingly resilient. And they had the attention span of mayflies. Despite the questions and odd habits, Chiro seemed to be doing as well as could be expected, and Aki was disgustingly healthy and cheerful these days. All in all, Gaara thought that he and Lee could be doing worse. 

 

Day Twenty-Five - 2 PM

 

"-Sand Clone, Desert Rain, Desert Avalanche, Flowing Desert Dragon, Desert Requiem-"

“Dragon?! Like a real dragon?!” Chiro asked, interrupting the list of Gaara's attacks he’d requested for reasons best known to him. He looked impressed. “What does that do?”

“Forms large waves of sand in a circular pattern and brings them crashing down on the target. I use it for large, slow military forces or siege equipment.”

Chiro ran, jumped and scrambled up far enough to poke his head and upper body over the rampart. He wedged his feet into a crack between the mortared stones and pointed out at the wasteland around Suna. 

“Can you hit that cactus?”

Gaara walked over and inspected the innocent plant near the foot of the wall. “Anybody could do that, even with a kunai.”

Chiro squinted and shoved up the hood and veil that Lee made him wear out of doors.

“Can you hit that rock over there?” A grubby finger jabbed towards a tempting piece of sandstone on a rocky outcropping two hundred feet away.

“With what, a Dragon? Yes. If I stretch. For something that size and distance, a Sand Wing would be better.”

Chiro looked up at him. “What’s that?”

Gaara held up his hands two feet apart. “A wedge of sand about this wide. Lee says it looks like a swallow.” He could send it slicing through the air faster than a kunai, and the edge could break bones or decapitate if not parried. It was a trick he'd coined from that Akatsuki bastard Deidara, though more for the idea of aerodynamics than 'aestheticism'.

Chiro bounced up and down as he clung to the rampart. “I want to see!"

“No.”

The boy looked up at him with a pleading expression, though he didn’t whine or fuss like he might with Lee.

“Shinobi do not show off, or expose their range or limitations carelessly,” Gaara said. “Lee and I tell you about some of our abilities, and you witness others, but you must never reveal to anyone what we show or tell you.”

Chiro blinked twice in blank incomprehension.

“Don’t tell anybody what distance I can hit something,” Gaara translated. “Otherwise an enemy might stand further away than that rock and try to strike at me from there, and that will force me to run around. I don't like that.”

“I won’t,” Chiro said solemnly, eyes wide. 

He jumped down and followed Gaara, subdued, his hand on the pendant around his neck. He played with Minne's youngest now, and a few of the boy's friends, but he still had that gesture. He also tended to get alarmed if he saw Gaara and Lee whispering together - a bit of a style-cramper - and there were still moments when he would creep back under the window sill in the study and draw geometrical figures with a worrisome absorption. The other kids let him play with them - maybe they assumed they didn’t have a choice - but Lee had reported that one of the little girls had said that Chiro was ‘weird’. He shouldn’t be close enough to those children to blurt out any classified information he might have overheard in the Kazekage’s residence, but hopefully Gaara had impressed Chiro with the necessity to be discreet anyway. 

Chiro was silent and solemn at his side for all of five minutes, then he spotted a lizard and dashed off along the rampart. Gaara had found that the trick to a quiet afternoon was to slate inspections and other activities in the village on the days he watched Chiro, so the kid was totally worn out and Gaara could get some work done when he was back at his desk. Watching the boy on a weekly basis wasn’t too inconvenient as long as he had no meetings and his workload was normal. But Lee was still taking on the brunt of the job, now that Minne had finished his 'education'. And while she did do them the favor of watching the boys on occasion, that would not be enough when Lee started working again soon. Gaara could watch one child for a few hours, but he was in no way qualified to watch a baby for any length of time longer than five minutes, and he had his own work and missions to attend to. 

He made a mental note to ask Tetsuyo how other Shinobi juggled work and children. The unfortunate answer was probably 'they ask their parents to watch them'. Clan structures were tight in the Hidden Villages. But surely there were alternatives for people like Lee and himself with drastically reduced families. Alternatives that did not involve the orphanage, since Lee would never accept that.

Though there was no need for long-term plans, Gaara reminded himself. They should be able to manage with Kankuro, Minne, Tetsuyo in a pinch. And Temari was back next week. That would do for the near future, until the kids left. Between all those resources, Gaara might even be able to garner a bit more peace and quiet, and more importantly, time alone with Lee. 

 

 

Day Thirty-Five - Midnight

 

"Man, that was good."

Lee fell back into the sand, panting hard. Sweat ran down his flushed face and bare chest, the tracks turning silvery-blue in the moonlight. He was staring up at the stars with a satisfied look on his face.

"You look like you've just had sex," Gaara observed from where he was sitting a couple of feet away.

That got him a scandalized stare. "Gaara!"

"What?"

"Don't-..." Lee made an irritated gesture that Gaara couldn’t interpret. Then the Leaf Jounin brandished a fist at the sky. "Exercise! Sparring! Explosions of energy, glorious rivalry, the testing of our young bodies. That's just as good as sex!"

The desert night sent a cool breeze to ruffle Lee's hair. Lee shifted in the sand. "Almost as good," he amended, as if honesty had overcome enthusiasm.

Gaara thought that pleasing Lee and putting that flush on his cheeks and that bright, proud look in his eye was definitely as good as sex, though he wouldn't mind having sex too if they could find somewhere to stash the kids. He wouldn’t mind having sex right here and now, what with Lee sprawled half-naked next to him and panting like that, but Lee had a thing about making love out of doors, and Temari was watching the boys back home, so that was out too.

Gaara wiped his forehead absently, freeing the hair that sweat had plastered to his skin. They were over half an hour away from Sunagakure in a flat stretch of sandy basins where they wouldn't be disturbed by a bunch of worried guards investigating any disturbances. Gaara had been able to cut loose as a result, and the desert was still shaking. It had felt good...Gaara's feelings towards his powers were ambivalent. They'd caused him to be shunned and feared all his life, but a part of him had always been attracted to the sheer magnitude of destruction he could unleash, the pure concentration required, the crash of growing chakra surging through his body until it released like a climax. It felt even better to have Lee there with him, watching him, fascinated and unafraid, even proud of his lover's abilities. When Lee looked at him like that, then for a time the monster and the Kazekage stopped pulling Gaara in two separate directions. Shukaku became nothing more than a weapon to use, the past a scar that might one day heal, and the various parts of him a whole.

"Ah! The challenge of youth! I feel rejuvenated!" Lee announced, slipping back into the top part of his green uniform after a hearty application of towel to his sweat-soaked skin. "That was excellent. What was that move you did right at the end there? I didn't recognize that."

"Something I've been working on."

That was guaranteed to capture Lee's attention. The discussion turned extremely technical while the sweat dried on their bodies and the night breeze cooled them.

Lee was sitting jack-knifed over his legs, perfectly flat against them, stretching out his muscles. Gaara's mind was wandering from Sand jutsus to something a bit more earthy. 

"I guess we'd better get back," Lee said, without the slightest trace of strain in his voice despite his position. "It was nice of Temari to watch the boys, but I don't think she'd be able to, you know, deal."

Deal with Aki's recurrent diarrhea, he meant, or Chiro's nightmares or occasional 'accidents' (Lee's way of saying the kid had wet the bed). Gaara agreed that they'd better get back before Temari ran the full gauntlet if they wanted her to babysit again. Temari wasn't as good with children as Kankuro was. She didn't seem to know what to say to them. On the other hand, when she said 'go to bed', Chiro obeyed instantly. She also seemed convinced that without her bossing the small household around, it would degenerate into chaos. Gaara counted on using that for all it was worth while it lasted.

"I hope she'll watch the kids again next week." Lee must have been thinking the same thing about Temari's child-watching abilities, because he sounded doubtful. "Kankuro will be too tired when he gets back from Water Country. Naruto can take one night, but he'll be gone in a couple of weeks. And I'll have that mission near the border in a few days- but I can be there and back in fifteen hours if I leave early and push myself. Maybe we can find another babysitter, we'll need one eventually...Say, Gaara-..."

Gaara watched a sand mouse hop up a nearby dune. The thing was walking in drunken circles. It must have been hiding deep underground, but the percussive force of Gaara's attacks had stunned it. 

After a few seconds he turned to see if Lee was going to finish that sentence. His lover's face was set in odd lines, half thoughtful, half sad. But when he caught Gaara looking at him, he smiled and said, "Nothing. I love you."

"I know," Gaara said, trying to decipher the meaning behind that look on his lover's features.

Lee rolled his eyes. Gaara knew by now that the proper answer to Lee's statement was 'I love you too', not 'I know'. But Gaara did know. Lee's love was one of the pillars of his current existence. If he didn't know that, the doubt would drive him insane, which would be bad for all concerned.

Lee looked away from Gaara's piercing unblinking gaze. "So...hey, I was wondering, you said Taidaka was getting status reports from Konoha, right? Do we have any news on Katsuro's whereabouts? If you're allowed to tell me, of course."

"You know the folder is on my desk."

"Gaara, I've told you before: even if you say so, I am not comfortable looking through your papers. That's just not done," Lee stated, shaking his head widely.

Gaara nodded. He knew. So did the Council, who had finally come to admit that there probably wasn't a more honest and trustworthy person than Lee on the planet, for all he was a Shinobi from another village, and they no longer looked askance at Gaara for taking sensitive documents home.

"There isn't much new in there anyway," Gaara said. "Just a few more dead ends. He's disappeared."

Lee frowned. There was nothing new, but that in itself was information, and Lee knew what it meant. Such a vanishing act was more than a band of yakusa or missing-nin could arrange. Either Katsuro was dead, had died shortly after his escape in such a way that the body would not be found...or he was somewhere even Konoha and Suna would have a hard time finding him: another hidden village.

Lee was silent for a while, and Gaara wished he knew what to say, what to do, who to attack to remove that look from his lover's eyes. Then Lee stood up and walked away with a firm step. He stopped near the mouse, which had crouched down into a tiny furry heap of confusion. Lee picked it up and carried it over to a rock outcropping. He checked the stones for snakes, and then dropped the mouse under an overhang where it would be a bit less vulnerable to night predators while it recovered.

"Come on, let's go home!" he said, turning back towards Gaara. 

Gaara got to his feet, but he'd hardly straightened before he found himself caught in a bear hug from behind.

"Thanks," Lee said. 

Gaara turned his head, but couldn’t see more than a close-up of Lee's cheek. "For what?"

"Everything," his lover whispered. Then he added, much more loudly: "For tonight!" He spun Gaara around, gave him a vigorous kiss and then broke away to strike a pose dramatically highlighted by the moonlight. "That was an excellent bout! We have to do this again some time!"

Gaara rubbed his shoulder where a small, dull ache informed him he'd pulled some muscles. His chakra paths felt a bit raw too. "Yes, we should. Things have been quiet so far this year. I'm getting out of shape."

"Well we can't have that! We will need to practice together more often- and you know you can borrow my wrist and ankle-weights when you go out on patrol. Also, I recommend-"

Gaara listened to the enthusiastic training plan taking shape with some resignation. 

They walked briskly across the dunes, heading towards home. Gaara hoped they'd get there before Chiro had his inevitable nightmare. They'd warned Temari, and she'd practically sneered at the notion that a child's bad dream could alarm her. But she'd not heard Chiro scream yet, a startling, ugly contrast to the shy, somewhat normal boy she'd met during the day. It made watching Chiro at night a difficult task for the non-initiated, but during the day Aki required a lot of care and entertaining, they both did. 

Despite the difficulties, the lovers had enough sitters lined up for a few more weeks. Minne watched the kids regularly, Kankuro and Temari took turns. And Naruto had stepped up and volunteered to watch the boys several times already, entire afternoons at his office or his apartment or running around town with them as if there was nothing he'd rather be doing. Naruto had turned out to be a much better babysitter than he was a diplomat. He and Chiro were much closer to the same mental age, as Gaara had put it, before being sharply reminded by Lee that it was thanks to Naruto watching the kids that the two lovers were still having sex regularly and Gaara should be more grateful.

All in all, it worked, though Gaara's inner control freak wasn't fond of the haphazard organisation involved. But it wasn't as if they needed any long-term plan. The kids had already been here over a month. Soon...

"Lee-..." 

Lee glanced at him when Gaara fell silent.

Gaara realized he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say, a rare event for him. He didn't really need to say anything, he decided. They could afford to take it one day at a time for another month or two. Maybe three. Perhaps they should wait until Konoha caught Katsuro, and the trial was out of the way. People would forget him and the children would no longer live with the sins of the father on their shoulders.

"Yes?" Lee asked.

"Nothing." Gaara reached over and let his fingers touch Lee's hair briefly, feeling the need for some form of contact. 

Lee gave him a surprised look, but grabbed Gaara's fingers as the latter withdrew them and squeezed them gently. His eyes dwelt over Gaara's sweat-soaked shirt, the long coat thrown over his shoulder...then the Jounin shook his head sharply.

"We shouldn't delay," he said with a sigh. "If Temari has to tackle one of the kids' bad nights, we’ll never get her to baby-sit again."

Good point. Gaara tried to imagine his sister dealing with some of the extremes he and Lee had been put through. Of a common accord they both broke into a run. Plans for the future could wait. There was no hurry after all, as long as life continued to obey the odd and crooked routine they'd adopted for a little while longer.


	10. Day Seventy-Eight - 10AM

Day Seventy-Eight - 10AM

 

Sand had piled up against the base of the wall. The southern rampart was one of those most exposed to the wind that regularly hammered the village. Suna was built on bedrock, but moving sand and howling storms were hard on the architecture. Damage was inevitable.

"Wasn't any shifting in evidence?" Gaara asked, measuring the top of the wall with his eyes. It didn't look slanted. Yet.

The senior Jounin in charge of the southern defenses shook his head. "None until the crack appeared-"

"Chiro, don't," Gaara said, interrupting his subordinate. 

Chiro paused with his arm wound back, glancing at Gaara. Then he dropped the rock he'd been holding and stared at the large ground-level crack he'd been aiming at.

"I can break it?" he asked, sounding both horrified and fascinated at the idea.

"I would hope not. But I don't think the wall needs any more pounding." The Shinobi around them were...not smiling, because Suna nin rarely did, but they didn't look quite as stern and menacing as usual, a sign of some indulgent amusement. 

"What do you advise?" Gaara asked the stonemason. "Rebuild or reinforce?"

"Beg y'r pardon, sir, but this wall's twenty years old," the man said respectfully, as if Gaara wasn't young enough to be his son. "It's been solid till now, but I'd like to inspect it thoroughly. I think it may be time to tear down a few stretches and build them back up from scratch."

Gaara looked at the crack, at the wall, at the no-man's-land surrounding them. "Very well. Take your time with the inspection, make it thorough."

"Yes sir. Um, the problem is, the crack is compromising the stability of the walkway up there, so I need to take care of this section first-"

"I don't want to waste time reinforcing what we'll probably tear down," Gaara stated, moving away from the group. "Chiro, come here."

"I wasn't touching," Chiro said. He'd approached the crack to stare at it from a couple of feet away with his hands conspicuously behind his back, though the fingers had been twitching. He'd have been poking at it as soon as Gaara's back was turned. 

"Come over here. Everybody else, stay exactly where you are."

Chiro scampered over excitedly to stand right behind Gaara. A bit too close. Gaara thought of getting one of the Shinobi who'd frozen to the spot, to grab Chiro and get the child away, but it shouldn't be too dangerous, and from the way Chiro was clustering near him, the boy wanted to see. 

Gaara joined his hands together, palm to palm, and closed his eyes. The sand covering rocks and filling the ravines around them growled as it shook itself loose. It slipped towards them like a rising wave, a desiccated tide in this land without water. It washed around the gathered humans, avoiding them, and crept towards the wall. It slithered into the crack, packing in without pressing it wider. Gaara frowned at the strain of building instead of breaking, while the sand surged up the stones, furled over the rampart, spilled down the far side, gathering in a pile to buttress the masonry.

Gaara extended one hand, directing the finer movements. When all had stilled, his fist slowly clenched. The sand made a dull sound as it compacted and hardened, tough as concrete. Gaara lowered his hand and turned towards the stonemason.

"Start by checking this section. Make sure the patch will hold up for a few days," he said, trying to ignore the look of trepidation in the man's eyes. Even some of the Shinobi present looked uneasy, though others who'd had more contact with their Kazekage and his power appeared quite blasé. 

"Y-yes sir-um- should he be doing that? Ah, the boy-"

Chiro had darted out from behind Gaara and was shoving against the sand reinforcements curiously, a strange contrast to the grown men still at a respectful distance who were staring at the child in surprise and a bit of superstitious horror.

"It's safe." If Gaara let this sort of attitude bother him, he'd never make it. Though a small part of him, which had only started to exist a few years ago, found itself faintly appeased by Chiro's reaction and the relaxed air of the high-level Shinobi present who'd seen things considerably more frightening than sand being helpful. 

The small group went back in through the southern gate and headed towards the outpost, scrutinizing the wall on the village side as they went for any further signs of cracks. There were civilian dwellings nearby, and nobody wanted a nasty accident.

"Kazekage-sama?"

Gaara glanced down from the blueprints he was studying. He was getting used to looking down these days. For most of his life, Gaara had been smaller than most Shinobi, or almost of a height as he grew, but these days he was used to dealing with what Lee affectionately referred to as rug-rats and half-pints.

There were three children staring up at him. He recognized one of them as Minne's younger son, but it had been an older girl who'd spoken. From the way the other two kids were standing slightly behind her, she was the designated spokesperson. A good distance away, a few more children peaked out from behind a wall. The girl didn't look all that intimidated by contrast, though she was speaking respectfully.

"Can Chiro come and play with us? We're going to the square on Trader Street." 

Chiro was looking up at him hopefully. Gaara nodded. The boy could entertain himself for hours with his notepad and pencils on the days Gaara watched him, but if the presence of other Shinobi meant he couldn't ask the Kazekage his questions or have his undivided attention every once in a while, the kid eventually got antsy. Playing with the other children would keep him amused for the rest of the morning, free of charge. The square the girl had mentioned was one street away from Outpost Seven and nowhere near the wall, it should be safe from falling masonry.

"Stay at the playground. I'll come by when I'm ready to leave. Keep an eye on him," he told the older girl as Chiro made a beeline towards the group of children. "Make sure he doesn't step where he's not supposed to. He wasn't raised in the desert."

"Gaara, I _know_ how to avoid scorpions n' snakes now, I don't need her to tell me how, I _know_ ," Chiro objected, an aggrieved look on his small face. The older girl grabbed him by the hand and simply said: "Yes, Kazekage-sama". He could hear them arguing in whispers as they left. 

That interruption and distraction out of the way, the Shinobi continued their inspection. The section of damaged wall was adjacent to Outpost Seven, which wasn't good news. If the building's foundations were compromised, it would require considerable work and expense to repair. But repair it they must. If an enemy attacked Suna, this structure would come under heavy fire, and Gaara wanted the thick walls protecting the troops firing back, not falling in on their heads.

"If we have to tear this section down," Gaara said, touring the inside of the armory and examining the wall, "what alternative fortifications can we use in the meantime?"

The senior Jounin looked around at the jutsu scrolls, the weapons, the arbalest near its murder-hole. A Chuunin had saluted when they came in, but then she'd promptly returned to what she'd been doing, inspecting and recharging the large weapon with grapeshot bolts. The bolts were poisoned, if Gaara remembered correctly. Good thing he'd left Chiro outside, then, since the kid was fascinated by anything large and mechanical, and might try to get his fingers where he wasn't supposed to. 

"The walls have always been our last line of defense against frontal attacks," the Jounin said, glaring at stone and mortar as if daring them to show a crack. "Any large force would have to get through the desert first, with our troops picking them off, then the ravines, the outer bottleneck to our valley- but we should not neglect any elements of our defenses, of course," the man finished quickly, as if remembering that his Kazekage was paranoid and over-protective. "I'm sure we can devise fallback plans if we need to rebuild this."

They were halfway through a list when a scream reached their trained ears.

That should not have been unusual. Children, Gaara had discovered, were noisy creatures, and screams and shouts were only to be expected in their vicinity. In fact it was when a group of them fell silent that Responsible Adults like Lee twitched and sped off to see what the hell was going on. Gaara had been absently listening to the noises of a distant game for the past thirty minutes, and this was just one more outburst-

Gaara was down the stairs and out the door immediately, regardless. Gaara of the Desert could distinguish between a scream of excitement and one of panic; he'd caused enough of the latter.

He leaped to the nearest roof. All other noises from the children had ceased, only that high thread of a scream remained. Gaara ran towards it. The air warped to his right, then behind him and to his left. The senior Jounin had reacted quickly and was trailing him, while two ANBU - his bodyguard and one of Taidaka's extras - had materialized at Gaara's side as soon as he'd hit high speed.

They were at the playground three seconds later, but they were almost too late all the same. Almost. At the edge of Gaara's vision he caught the slightest edge of a blur, a shadow darting around the curved tower of a nearby building. Gaara didn't pause. Deep inside, instincts were seething. Tiles cracked beneath his feet as he changed direction and followed. He passed the tower and caught sight of running figures a hundred yards away, heading at Shinobi speed straight towards an empty stretch of wall well away from the outpost and the nearest patrols. They had a head start. In a few seconds they'd be outside Suna, and no-one nearby to stop them. 

A glimpse of the playground was caught like a stillframe in Gaara's mind as he followed. Eight children, half of them with wide eyes and starting to shout in panic, the other half thrown to the ground, one of them unmoving. No signs of Chiro. Which meant-

Something dark and dangerous stirred in Gaara's soul.

The air above Suna crackled like dry lightning and sand screamed and scored the buildings. Windows shattered in the streets below. Chakra ripped through the peaceful morning, heavy and tainted with things inhuman, and Gaara materialized in a whipping cloud of sand in front of the fugitives just before they reached the wall.

The first man lifted a kunai and died immediately, belly and chest ripped open by a solid spear of sand. The second one made a run for it. Gaara let him go. He knew the Jounin who'd been with him would peel off to chase that one down, quickly joined by other nearby Shinobi heading this way to find out why Suna was ringing like a bell under that ominous chakra surge. The runner wouldn't get far.

That left the one holding Chiro. The boy was folded over his forearm, apparently unconscious. The man was veiled and dressed in a desert trader outfit, but he was no civilian. He had a kunai to the boy's throat, and there was some serious chakra gathering in his body. Somewhat powerful, Gaara estimated. But young. Couldn't be more than seventeen beneath that veil. Nowhere near Gaara's level, but unfortunately the foreigner had a trump card and knew it.

Gaara's mind was set in the coldly controlled mind frame of battles. He no longer fought for his amusement or his validation; the Kazekage fought to protect, it was his reason to exist.

But beneath that, another emotion flared, dangerous instincts that might hamper his levelheadedness. Shukaku's powers were simmering threateningly close to the surface. The demon was a territorial creature, and Gaara had inherited some of that. It was why it had never occurred to him to run away from his desert village when he was younger, even though staying in Suna might mean more assassination attempts, and after the Chuunin exam, defending his home had given him a valid reason to exist. 

Now those instincts were rearing up in all their ugly glory. This creature had entered Gaara's domain and hurt what was his to defend. This _thing_ was going to suffer. If Chiro died, then the killer would still be alive a year from now, but not even the dead would envy him the privilege. 

"Let the boy go. I'll give you safe conduct out of here," Gaara said, his voice measured and cold, while inside something barely stifled screamed for blood.

The young man's eyes flickered towards the corpse of his friend. He was angry. Gaara could feel it. That wasn't good. But he wasn't angry enough to do anything rash or fail to realize how bad his position was.

"Let him go," Gaara repeated. Chiro was dangling from the man's grip like a skinned rabbit. But if the boy were dead, surely the man wouldn't be keeping him hostage. Unless he was an exceptionally fast thinker who'd realized that pretending Chiro was alive was his only chance. Something hard and old in Gaara's heart contemplated that possibility, and then started planning what he would do to those responsible should this be the case. But Gaara's better instincts, newly acquired, told him that Chiro was still alive. He had to believe that and act accordingly.

"You let us go and I'll release the boy outside your perimeter," the creature shot back.

"No."

"You don't have a choice!" The kunai pricked the skin on the back Chiro's neck near the skull, above the spot where a shove would send two inches of metal sliding into the brain-stem and kill him instantly. The threat was valid, but there was the taint of desperation in it now. With the reality of Gaara of the Desert standing before him, the creature didn't seem so sure that threatening a child would keep death at bay. 

"Give me the boy," Gaara said softly. He could feel his men surrounding them. Suna's channels of defense and reaction were well honed, and Gaara kept them that way through constant practice maneuvers. By now, the alarm would have gone out to the Specials on duty in the village, as well as some of the top Jounin.

"Let me go _now_ or I'll kill him!" 

Gaara examined him, eyes narrowed to hard diamonds. The human was afraid of him and getting more so by the second. That was understandable, but dangerous. This had to end now.

The man flinched and took an instinctive step back as more Sand poured from the gourd and hovered like a cloud of poison. 

"Stop that! I know your capabilities! You're not fast enough! You can't reach me before I kill him!"

"No, I can't," Gaara said, voice slow and steady with just the slightest stress on the ‘I'. 

No other signal was needed. There was a flash of green-

The Sand shot out, but only to catch Chiro's falling form. The creature who had attacked them was twenty feet away, slammed into the rise of a dome hard enough to crack the stone and leave a crater. Lee had swept the hand with the kunai up and away from Chiro and strong-armed the opponent clear across the roof, knocking him out in the process. The man immediately disappeared from Gaara's concern, to be dealt with later. He'd harnessed his bloodthirsty instincts years ago. His first duty was now to protect.

For a moment he thought he'd failed. Chiro was completely limp and his face a bloodless white. But he was breathing as the Sand dropped him into Gaara's arms. There was a small fletched dart in his neck just above the collar bone. 

A gloved hand reached past Gaara's shoulder and plucked the dart out. Taidaka had arrived. The ANBU shoved the mask up from his face and sniffed the point.

"Knockout," he said crisply. The mask went on again, covering a muted flicker of relief on the scarred features. 

"Is he okay?!" Lee was on his knees next to Gaara, feeling for the pulse in Chiro's neck. He'd stepped over the bloodied corpse of the first attacker without a second glance. "I was at the training grounds and I felt your chakra and I-"

"Hit with a tranq dart to make him easier to carry," Gaara said, shoving Chiro into Lee's arms. He snatched the dart from Taidaka's fingers and dropped it into a pocket of Lee's jacket. "You're the fastest here. Clinic, now."

Lee was gone the next instant. Energy was crackling around him, adding the destructive power of the First Gate to his usual speed, but this time Gaara wasn't going to object. The Renge was for emergencies, and little else would have gotten that kunai away from Chiro's neck in time.

"Aki?" Gaara asked tightly, following the green blur first with his eyes, then with his senses, trying to beat down the urge to go with Lee and make sure his lover stayed safe. Lee could handle himself, Gaara had had proof of that time and again, he had to trust that.

"Should still be at my sister's. She lives much deeper in the village. I doubt anybody would try to extract a child from that location. They had a chance with Chiro because he was near the wall, and they didn't realize you were close by. I've sent men to check, of course." Taidaka's voice was emotionless. His family could well be in danger, but he was here at his Kazekage's side where his duty required him to be. Gaara knew he himself might have to make that kind of choice one day, and he just hoped his sanity would survive it.

He glanced around. Somebody had caught the last fugitive. The one who'd threatened Chiro was still unconscious, cuffed and with a bridle gag between his teeth to avoid any funny stuff with poison capsules. Gaara noted it only in passing. Later. That was the order of his life these days. First protect, then kill.

"Designate someone to deal with this," he told Taidaka. "Then come with me."

"Yes sir." Taidaka pointed at one of the ANBU and followed Gaara before the man could salute in response.

They didn't make it to Minne's. One of the men Taidaka had sent to check materialized before them to report that Aki was still where he was supposed to be. Taidaka went on to verify the defenses around his sister's house. Gaara ruthlessly crushed the need to go see too. He was no longer alone, he was part of a village and he had to rely on his men. He had his own duties now, and he'd best serve everybody by fulfilling them. 

So he went to the command center instead. They'd neutralized one threat, but there could be a backup group in case the first failed, and other children might have been taken and not missed yet. This could all be the prelude to something much worse, and though Gaara could not imagine why someone would choose this way to start a war, he was not going to ignore the possibility and neither were his troops. In the streets below, Sunagakure was gearing up like a well-oiled machine. His men had sealed off the block beyond Trader Street where all foreigners in Suna were quartered. People were being stopped, checkpoints set up. Outlying patrols were warned to be on full alert while units quartered Suna and manned the walls. Gaara stopped at a few key points, making sure that all was going according to plan and that his people knew where to find him if a new emergency arose. It was close on half an hour before he was able to make it to the clinic.

One look at Lee's expression was all the good news he needed. That and Chiro's face, no longer deathly pale against the pillow. 

"He should be fine," Lee said as soon as he saw Gaara. "Where's Aki? I heard he was safe. Is he home?" 

"He's-" Gaara didn't need to answer, since at that moment Taidaka appeared with Aki in his arms. The infant's eyes were wide as soup plates. Being picked up by a menacing masked man and hustled over the rooftops must have been a rather marking experience. 

"No enemy showed up at Minne's. I'm consolidating defenses here," Taidaka said shortly. "Kazekage, with permission, I need to-"

"Go." 

Taidaka shoved the infant into the arms of one of the Jounin guarding the clinic, overriding the man's spluttered objections with a curt "Watch him." Then he was gone. The prisoners were about to get a very unpleasant visit. 

As soon as Taidaka vanished, Aki started crying. The Jounin took it like a man and, still holding the child as he'd been ordered to, followed a nurse to one side of the room to see if there was anything Aki needed apart from venting his fright. 

Lee made a show of wiping his brow, radiating relief.

"Oh man. Good thing I was in the training grounds and not out in the deep desert. Or on a mission! I might have been days away. I can't believe it...What the hell was that about?"

Gaara didn't say anything. They didn't know yet. They would. Soon.

"I heard the details from them," Lee said, tilting his head towards the remaining ANBU watching the clinic. "Are the other children alright?"

"One of them was knocked cold, but should recover. The others were just bruised or scared."

"Good. Gaara...the men who did this...I didn't get a good look at their faces-"

"Three strangers. None of them older than twenty by the look of them." None of them had been Katsuro. It had crossed Gaara's mind, though it wouldn't have stopped him from killing all three of them if he'd been given the chance. 

"Good. That's good," Lee whispered, looking down at Chiro in the clinic bed. Then he shook his head briskly and his usual optimism came back to the fore. "Then everything's fine! And Chiro should be coming around soon. Right, doc?"

Masaki had appeared on the other side of the bed like a gloomy old phantom. The man was a medi-nin, a combat medical specialist first and foremost, and had never mastered much of a bedside manner. 

"We went ahead and extracted as much of the poison as we could from the boy's system, and gave him the counter-agent," he said, flipping through a chart. "Otherwise he'd be unconscious till tomorrow. No liver, kidney or cardio-pulmonary damage. No brain damage that we could spot, but we'll have to verify that over the next few days. The bastards used a dart meant for adults. Lucky they went for this one. If the baby had been hit with that dosage, his heart would have stopped within minutes."

Lee made a distressed sound. Strange how he'd been a Shinobi for ten years now and still hadn't fully mastered his emotions. Gaara hoped in passing that he never would.

Twenty minutes later, Chiro stirred. He'd barely opened his eyes that Masaki was shining a light into them and examining his pupils. The boy was too groggy to get upset over that. When the doctor stopped poking him, Chiro stared around blankly, eyes glazed, but he appeared to recognize Lee, standing right next to him. He reached weakly towards his cousin and made a noise halfway between a whimper and a sob until Lee sat down on the bed, gathered him up in his arms and patted him on the back. 

"There there, everything's fine," Lee said in the bracing tones he used in sickrooms to cheer people up and which injured Shinobi all over Suna and Konoha had come to know and dread. "You're here and you'll be absolutely fine and practicing Taijutsu tomorrow. In fact, I'll teach you a new form as soon as you're-"

Chiro mumbled something.

"Huh? Oh, you're at the clinic. Don't worry, Dr Masaki will take the best care of you, and there's me here, and Gaara and Aki. You'll be fine, okay?"

"...Want to go home..." 

"I know, Chiro, but you have to stay at the clinic for awhile. Dr Masaki has to make sure there's nothing wrong with you. We can go home tomorrow."

"I want to go home..."

Gaara blinked slowly. 

The child...was not talking about his family home back in Konoha, still cordoned off with ANBU seals one assumed. He was talking about the house where he and his brother currently lived with Lee and Gaara. That was the home Lee had meant too. That was the home Gaara had been thinking about as well, until he realized that was - should be - incorrect.

Everybody's eyes were on Chiro. No-one noticed the unusual look that must have passed over Gaara's face. No-one but Lee, who glanced quickly over his shoulder as if Gaara had actually said something out loud. 

Lee's expression was guarded, but there was growing hope there too as he examined his lover's face. Gaara looked back with resignation. Now that he was coming down from his state of territorial rage, he had to recognize the emotions behind it. He couldn't deny them, and he couldn't crush that look of hope in Lee's eyes, and he couldn't tell Chiro that 'home' should more rightfully be Konoha, and...damn it...

The silent conclusion they shared in that look was interrupted when Chiro went from dazed to hysterical in about one second.

"No! I don't want to stay here! I want to go home!" His voice was weak and ragged.

"Shhh-"

But Chiro had burst into tears, his words barely intelligible.

"L-Lee! _Gaara! I want to go home!_ "

"Okay, okay," Lee said weakly, doing the patting thing again. Chiro was sobbing in his arms, but seemed to calm down a fraction.

"Can he leave the clinic?" Lee asked Masaki, twisting his head so he didn't have to let go of Chiro.

"I'd have preferred to keep him under observation for a day, but I can send a nurse to check up on him this evening. He'll sleep for a few hours, and be groggy afterwards, but most of the toxin's out of his system. Keep an eye on him, maybe wake him up at some point and get him to drink some water, but other than that I see no reason why you can't take him home." And there was that word again. 

Lee lifted Chiro up in his arms. The Jounin's voice was calm but distracted as he thanked the doctor. Gaara turned towards the Shinobi who'd reappeared, still patiently holding Aki. The man fitted the infant into his arms without a word. It was only when Gaara had walked through the hospital corridors, out the door and into the street that he realized Aki hadn't kicked up his usual fuss at Gaara's proximity. The baby was silent, eyes wide and alarmed; the only sound he was making was that of his breath, quick and light, and a soggy noise as he chewed his fingers. He'd twisted around to watch Lee and his brother, though Gaara thought he was too young to understand how close he'd come to losing the latter. Chiro's crying was what had probably upset him. Even now his brother never cried outside of his nightmares. The tears on Chiro's face had dried in their tracks and his eyes were closed, he was out of it again.

"Are you really sure about this?" Lee suddenly asked, still staring at the street ahead. Gaara gave him a fleeting glance before bringing his attention back to bear on their surroundings. Lee looked stunned. He didn't seem to expect an immediate answer, which was good. Gaara wanted to get to the safety of a familiar place with walls around them first. At the edge of his perception, four ANBU were shadowing them. 

Home had a disturbed feel about it. His troops would have thoroughly checked it for booby traps as a matter of course. Of a common accord the two lovers headed straight for Gaara's study. Lee tucked Chiro into the camp bed. The child didn't wake up, but he looked a lot better already. Gaara paused, turning on himself as he glanced around the study, then he stuck Aki under the window seat, roughly hedging him in with the two cushions and giving him the ball to play with. The one-year-old was still oddly silent; he was getting big enough to understand that something serious was going on.

Gaara sat down at his desk, automatically checking the folders, the inkstone, the pens and brushes, the order of it all. He had to go to the command center soon and then he had to go see how far Taidaka had gotten with the prisoners. A lot would hinge on why three foreign Shinobi had suddenly shown up in Sunagakure and tried to kidnap Chiro. But whatever their reasons, it did not change the inevitable decision that was waiting for Gaara and Lee to put it into words.

Lee pulled up a chair and sat with his elbows on his knees and legs nearly touching Gaara's.

"You're the head of your family, correct? So you just need to keep the boys to have adopted them," Gaara asked without preamble. 

Lee's lack of surprise at the question showed how closely he could follow Gaara's thoughts, a testimony to the bond that had grown between them, strong and steadying. 

"That's right." Then Lee's look of solid determination crumbled a bit and he frowned. "That is...yes, I'm the head of our family now, but we're a minor branch of a larger clan."

Gaara scrutinized him through narrowed eyes. "Are you saying your Konoha kin have legal claim to the boys?" They might exert rather than see the boys raised near the bearer of Shukaku and far from Konohagakure.

"Oh, no, not legally. Main branch or side branch, I'm still the children's closest living relative - who's not on the run, that is. I don't think even their mother's clan would be able to object. But my other relatives...well, they know how to bring up children, and they did raise me. The problem isn't the legal side of things, but morally, if they say they can provide a better home for the boys-"

Gaara's fingers curled into a fist, as they did when he closed a Coffin. 

"Those people didn't inquire about Chiro and Aki in over two months. The children's _enemies_ manifested themselves before they did. They have no moral rights whatsoever."

"...You have a point." Lee's voice was nowhere near the measured, lethal tone Gaara had used, but there was disappointment and some anger evident, and the quick look he gave Aki was fiercely protective. 

There was a moment of silence, the size and import of the decision weighing down the air in the study.

"Maybe on paper, a normal family would be better than being raised by two Shinobi on active duty- two guys, at that," Lee added with a thoughtful scowl. "But we understand them. They like it here. Even if the place gets a bit weird from time to time, I still think they'll be happier with us than with the main family back in Konoha, who'd only raise them out of duty."

"Agreed."

"We'll do our best! They'll lack for nothing!" Lee exclaimed, fist raised in determination.

"That's a certainty. Being fostered by the Kazekage will insure they have access to the best in Suna. Lee," Gaara added as his lover opened his mouth, "I'm not very centered right now, so if you say anything ridiculous about an imposition or start apologizing for anything, I am not sure how I'll react, but it's bound to damage the furniture."

But Lee only shook his head, not looking intimidated in the slightest. "I was just going to say 'thanks'. It _is_ a huge imposition. They've already turned the house and our lives upside down. But it's one we're taking on together, right?"

Gaara nodded, feeling some satisfaction at the way Lee's words made it sound obvious. It eased the knot of the pressure headache that had tightened like a band over his forehead this past hour, the ever familiar result of strong emotions since he'd been a child. 

"But are you really sure about this, Gaara?" Lee asked seriously. "We won't be able to change our minds later. It looks like Chiro already feels at home here, we shouldn't lead him on if-"

"Neither of us is of the type to change our minds once we've made a decision," Gaara pointed out. "Are you sure about this?"

"Me?!" Lee blinked, startled at the question. "Of course! I- I never thought I'd have the opportunity to have kids. And Chiro and Aki- I - to tell you the truth, even if the main family had asked for them weeks ago, I don't think I'd have been able to just bundle them back to Konoha and forget about them. I just wasn't sure what to do about it, I didn't think you'd want- but I am sure now! I want them to stay."

No surprise there. Lee had, predictably, gotten completely attached to the kids in the months they'd been here. And with his determination, spirit, heart and resolve, he would never waver, whatever travails the brats put him through. Which was good, because he'd still be bearing the brunt of the care and education. Gaara would help as much as he could, but he wasn't going to contribute too much to the childrearing side of things, or they'd end up with a couple of young lunatics on their hands.

Nonetheless, Chiro needed him. 

The kid would go to Lee for affection and encouragements, but Chiro needed Gaara. There was a connection between them, built out of strange questions that would always be answered and the safety of a nook in Gaara's den. Gaara had only recognized this bond in the clinic, when it had become too obvious to ignore. But he had the sinking feeling that he'd felt it on some deeper level weeks ago, and had done nothing to remove himself from the trap of that need, any more than he'd taken care to not let Lee get too attached to the kids. Instead, Gaara had been pushing the decision to send the boys back to Konoha further and further away into the future. And now...

Since the age of twelve, Gaara had dedicated his life to forming bonds and trying his best to be needed, to surround himself with people he could protect and to whom his existence mattered. Now he mattered to Chiro, and Chiro mattered to him; a faint echo of a kindred spirit. It wasn't only for Lee's sake that he wanted to keep the boys. He wanted to see Chiro find his way out of the darkness that had touched them both, and grow up more successfully than Gaara had. He wanted to make sure the past - or any other enemy - would never harm either of the boys again. 

Lee was looking at him inquisitively, so Gaara put away the new knowledge and the feelings that went with it, to be examined later during his sleepless nights, and concentrated on the matter at hand. 

"There's something you have to consider, Lee. If we adopt them, they'll be raised here, as sons of Suna. They'll go to our academy and they'll be trained by Sand Shinobi. As long as I live, they should be all right. But what about the future? Aki might not have any problems, but Chiro is old enough where his loyalties might always be questioned. He could feel divided between Konoha and Suna, born in the one and raised in the other. If our alliance ever breaks down, he'll be expected to take sides, but neither'll fully trust him. We've talked about this before, because you're in much the same position. But we agreed the chances of conflict between Sand and Leaf were small while we still lived. Chiro and Aki, however...our wards will likely survive us both. They might face difficult situations as a result."

Lee had been staring at his joined hands while Gaara spoke. His face was unreadable until Gaara had mentioned ‘our wards', and then a faint warmth crossed his features. He was silent, reflecting on the matter seriously. 

"We'll have to talk to Chiro," he finally said. "And to Aki when he's older...I don't want them to forget Konoha. Or rather, I want them to know it as they should, not as Chiro probably remembers it now. I'll tell them about it, and take them on visits and make sure they know their roots and their family. But Suna - and you- are giving them a home. They'll be raised here. As for which village their loyalty will be to..." Lee straightened up, scrubbed the back of his neck and grinned a bit self-consciously. "You know, I always saw myself as a link between our people, someone who belongs to both villages in a way, and who works to keep them together and avoid another war. Maybe Chiro and Aki can succeed me in that."

"That would be a good reason to live for," Gaara said softly, answering Lee's grin with one of his rare small smiles.

"So that's settled?" Lee asked hopefully, eyes shining.

"Just one more detail." Gaara crossed his arms over his chest and gave Lee one of his patented dark stares. "This roommate nonsense is at an end."

Lee winced. "Oh. Yeah, I guess that'd be stupid. And difficult to manage after awhile. It's already been a pain these past two months. Um...Gaara? Could I ask you to do me a favor?" 

Gaara nodded, agreeably surprised that Lee was actually counting on his help without having his arm twisted for once.

Lee rubbed his nose and avoided Gaara's stare. "You and Chiro get along well, right, so maybe you can, ah, explain that bit to him. The bit where you and I share a room and a bed and all that. Because I really don't see how I could look him in the eye and say any of that."

"Fine." Gaara could barely imagine Lee trying to work his way through that one. "You do realize that I'll answer any question he asks me. Even the ones you'd rather I didn't answer."

"Yes. You'll be your usual blunt self. But it hasn't killed him yet," Lee said with a small unreadable smile. He got up to go after Aki who'd crawled away into the reception room, leaving Gaara to wonder how much Lee knew about his and Chiro's conversations of the past few months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trust me when I say, you can prepare for years to be a parent, and the minute it happens you'll be sitting there with a stunned look on your face muttering, 'fuck me, now what?' as a million little details come rampaging towards you. Welcome to fatherhood, guys!


	11. Day Eighty-One - 8AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: For mentions of torture and the darker side of being Shinobi.

Day Eighty-One - 8AM

 

Gaara was taking his first break in three days when Taidaka found him on the roof of the command centre.

"Kazekage-sama." 

Gaara's feet scraped on the parapet as he turned away from the desert view. 

"Have they broken?" It had become his daily greeting to the ANBU leader. 

The prisoners had shown considerable resistance. Taidaka and his team had gleaned some information from them, but they were far from having it all, and what they'd gotten so far could still be cleverly planted misinformation.

"Not yet, but something new has just come to light. This is addressed to you, sir." Taidaka's voice was clipped. He was holding out a scroll. It had been removed from its roller, its edges were frayed and torn and the paper scratched thin in places. Gaara looked at Taidaka in some surprise as he took the scroll; his correspondence was checked for poisons as a matter of course, but rarely this thoroughly. He unfurled the roll of rice paper, glanced at the signature first and understood the precautions. The letter was from Rock Katsuro.

Gaara's eyes flickered to the top of the scroll, where his own name had caught his attention.

_To Gaara, Godaime Kazekage of Sunagakure, with deepest respects._

_My superiors have just informed me of the recent attack on your village. You have all our assurances that we had no foreknowledge of this, and were not involved in any way. As a Shinobi and a warrior, I have fully accepted the consequences of all my decisions and actions, one of which is that I will never see my sons again. I leave them in Rock Lee's care, with the hopes that he will protect them and raise them to be good Shinobi, who will redress the wrongs I have brought to our name and clan in Konohagakure._

The curt message was signed Rock Katsuro, followed by the Shinobi symbol for Jounin and the wavy lines of the Village Hidden in Mist. 

"Interesting."

Taidaka grunted. He didn't need to add anything. They'd figured out the attackers were from Mist from the autopsy, and they'd confirmed it after the first day of interrogating the two surviving prisoners. Looked like Konoha could stop searching for their missing nin.

Gaara was silent for a moment, studying the words, then he looked up at the ANBU. 

"Do you believe him?" he asked directly.

"I wouldn't believe a traitor if he told me the desert was dry," Taidaka immediately answered, scars twisting an unpleasant smile, "it's a matter of principle. But in this case, I think he's afraid. Of you, sir. He's saying whatever he thinks will pacify us because he's afraid you'll hunt him down and destroy him if you think he's involved."

Gaara had been contemplating just that, now that there was some evidence linking Katsuro with the kidnapping attempt. But that was Chiro and Aki's right; to either find him and make him pay for his treason and their mother's death, or forget about him. An older, wiser Gaara knew he should not take that choice away from them. He had never been able to confront his father, and either break off with him altogether or elaborate some form of understanding of the former Kazekage's motives. Personally he was glad the bastard had died violently, but he thought it wrong to rob Chiro and Aki of their chance to address the score one day.

"We need to have a word with Mist," Gaara said, rolling up the rice paper.

"Yes sir. As a matter of fact, an envoy appeared at the gates half an hour ago. He's the one who brought the message. He wants to meet with you as soon as possible." Gaara noted with approval that Taidaka had made the man wait a while already, the time to run tests on the scroll, and probably fetch Temari and get some more information. "He arrived with only a small escort, all in preventive custody at this time. He says he's on a diplomatic mission."

"That is his misfortune then," Gaara said, heading towards the trapdoor down from the roof. "I don't feel very diplomatic today." 

 

Day Eighty-One - 9AM

 

Behind the one-way glass, the harsh neon light picked up the roughness of the bare concrete lining the underground cell. To one side of the small room, next to the medical supply table, a water faucet was dripping, sending ripples into a kidney bowl containing disinfectant and a couple of senbon. The atmosphere would have lent itself to blood dripping from the walls, but Gaara knew they were spotless. His Interrogation Division worked much more cleanly than that. 

The envoy, one Suzaku Daiki, had a great deal of control, but Gaara could pick up fear like the finest sensor. He could tell the man didn't like the venue chosen for his meeting with the Kazekage. It seemed Suzaku liked even less when he realized that the interrogation cell on the other side of the one-way glass held the man who'd grabbed Chiro.

"Kaze-" he was stopped abruptly from advancing by Taidaka and his ANBU escort. Gaara was on the other side of the room. The former Kazekage had always maintained a safe perimeter between himself and all but his most trusted guards. Temari had suggested adopting the same protocol for this meeting. Gaara hardly needed the security of distance, but he liked the message it sent.

Gaara was near the room with the prisoner, Temari at his side. The envoy didn't look happy to see her, or the small hand-held fan she carried. Though Temari fought with the large fan, what she could do with a smaller version, or even an ordinary paper one, was pretty gruesome. On Gaara's right, Lee was reading Katsuro's letter for the third time.

"Kazekage-sama, thank you for seeing me in the present difficult circumstances," the man started. "I bring greetings from the Mizukage and our Village Hidden in Mist. It is the wish of my superiors that our association with Hidden Sand, honored these past-"

"This is yours."

The envoy's gaze followed Gaara's minimal gesture towards the man behind the one-way glass. The latter was unconscious, bound and gagged and rather the worse for wear, though at this stage of the interrogation most of the work had been done with Genjutsu and acupuncture points. 

"Kazekage-sama, I hope you believe in the good faith of-"

"Get to the point," Gaara said softly, voice as pleasant as the senbon in their kidney bowl. Next to Gaara, Lee finished re-reading the scroll, rolled it up with a firm crunch and looked at the envoy, waiting for him to continue. 

The envoy was a professional negotiator and diplomat. Not a flicker of uncertainty crossed his features. He was silent a mere two seconds, then he got to the point as requested. 

"Kazekage-sama, I am sure you are aware of our Jounin rites of passage."

Temari's fan opened with a sharp snap, making the envoy tense. She fanned herself and gave him an unpleasant smile. "Are you going to claim these three were on their trial to become Mist Jounin?"

Hidden Mist did everything differently from the other villages. Other Shinobi organisations promoted Jounin according to merit, combat experience, overall skills and a series of tests internal to the village. Deaths were somewhat rare. Mist, on the other hand, did nothing. It was up to ambitious Chuunin to choose a test for themselves, go out, perform it successfully and return. If the test was sufficiently impressive and demonstrated their abilities, they were promoted to Jounin. The tests could be anything: picking the Daimyo's pockets, kidnapping a VIP or stealing all his secrets. Another acceptable 'test' of combat skills was to assault patrols from other Shinobi villages and overpower them. They tended to avoid Suna because the terrain was too difficult for a marshland people, so there hadn't yet been any such incidents under Gaara's tenure, but he'd heard of the custom. Since the aim was to count coup and show off their clear superiority, not start a war, the Mist Shinobi would take an insolent care not to seriously injure their opponents. The custom irritated other villages, but complaining too loudly made them sound weak and unable to defend their own borders from attack. So they waited until one of the patrols managed to turn the tables on the Mist candidates and detain them, and then they took a certain vicious satisfaction in sending the captured Chuunin back home with a little message along the lines of 'are these losers your men, by any chance?'. Gaara didn't know what happened to Mist Shinobi who failed their Jounin candidature test and embarrassed themselves in other villages. If Mist stayed true to form, they were probably executed. 

"I don't 'claim', Temari-dono. It is a matter of public record in Mist when our best Chuunin leave to test themselves as future Jounin. You are perfectly free to check this. Of course, you understand that their aims are up to them. What they decide to attempt is actually part of the test. If they choose something too easy, we will know their measure, and if they choose something too hard, then they will pay the price. They are to become leaders-"

"It's a matter of less public record that the best of them are sometimes discreetly _encouraged_ to select some tests over others, and help Mist attain an objective at the same time as they-"

"I'm sorry to contradict you, Temari-dono, but I have to deny that."

"Your apology is accepted, Suzaku-dono, since I didn't expect you to admit it," Temari answered sweetly. She appeared to be enjoying herself.

"Of course, we do have a policy that they shouldn't interfere with the inner workings of another Hidden Village-"

"Or at least if they do, they should not get caught," Temari murmured, fanning herself.

"No, Temari-dono, we do not condone infiltrating other villages. Waylaying a patrol on the border and having a, hah, friendly match with them is not a problem, as long as there are no casualties. That is a right that all other villages have accorded us from times immemorial-"

"We all ask you to stop, but you won't," Temari said sharply. "I'd hardly call that according you-"

"-but I grant you that they should not have attacked anyone inside your precinct. That was a great mistake on their part. Though these three misguided young men did abide within the spirit of our rules. After all, nobody was injured, correct?"

Temari's mouth tightened behind her fan. From her expression, Gaara gathered that the envoy had scored a point in their game of politics, diplomacy and hidden daggers.

"One of the children with Chiro was knocked unconscious!" Lee exclaimed. "That is an unacceptable risk towards an innocent young person-"

"Must have gotten bumped into during the grab. Don't you teach your children how to fall properly?" Suzaku asked silkily.

The flit of Temari's fan sounded a tad aggressive.

"The drug used could have harmed Chiro," Gaara said. His voice fell soft and neutral, like the water in the kidney bowl in the other room. It sent ripples of stillness and silence around him, halting the motions of Temari's fan, interrupting Lee's protests, stilling the guards around them.

The envoy gave him a cautious look. Temari was an adversary worthy of respect, but he knew where the real danger in the room stood. "That child is not part of Suna. He shouldn't concern you."

"He is now, and he does," Gaara said. Lee's hand rested briefly and lightly on the small of his back, a sign that some of what Gaara felt inside was coming dangerously close to the surface.

"Ah. That is good news," the envoy said quickly. "You see, I believe I know why our Jounin candidates took the risk of trying to retrieve the boy. As the message I brought you indicates, Rock Katsuro, the boy's father, has found refuge in our village. He-"

"Found refuge," Temari repeated, voice rich with sarcasm.

"Yes. We welcome many ninja who have had a falling out with their villages," Suzaku told her smoothly. 

Which was only the truth. The blood-soaked 'graduation exam', where half their children killed the other half to become Genin, had been cancelled after the Zabuza incident, but that was pretty typical of Mist's approach to things, and they took a perverse pride in it. However, it did imply a lot of attrition among their troops. Mist Shinobi were extremely dangerous, but there wasn't that many of them for obvious reasons. Unlike other villages, they did not hesitate to recruit powerful missing-nin to complement their ranks. How they kept them in line was a mystery known only to the Mizukage and his elite, but Gaara had heard of very, very few instances of a Shinobi betraying Mist. Of course, it was obvious in this instance that they were behind Katsuro's treason, but they could claim they knew nothing about it and had merely offered him shelter once he left Konoha. There were no extradition treaties between Shinobi villages.

"What did Katsuro have to do with this?" Lee asked. He sounded sad. In the gourd, the Sand started circling dangerously.

The envoy scrutinized Lee as if he had just now noticed him and was wondering what he was doing here. His answer was lofty and directed at Temari and Gaara.

"Nothing, not directly. But he was worried about his children. Worried that Konoha would take reprisals against them, or-"

"What?! Konoha would _never_ -" Temari leaned past Gaara and quickly poked Lee with her fan, interrupting him in mid-shout.

"Since the two little boys apparently had to find refuge here, you have to understand why Katsuro was worried," Suzaku pointed out in an oh-so-reasonable tone. Lee flinched. The Sand circled faster. "The Jounin candidates were concerned on behalf of Katsuro, their new colleague and a valuable addition to our village. They must have decided to reunite him with his family, as a worthy trial testing their skills of infiltration and strength."

"Really." Gaara's flat statement - nowhere near a question - earned him another cautious look. "Strange that they only grabbed one of them then."

"Yes, Katsuro must not care about his youngest," Temari chimed in. "Loving father, is he? I heard he wasn't that good of a husband."

Gaara and his men had retraced the attackers' steps in Suna. The three Mist Shinobi had skillfully infiltrated the village as traders from Water Country. They'd been here over a week and had scouted out the boys' location. An incomplete timetable of Gaara's and Lee's movements had been found on them. The fact the children were living with the companion of the Kazekage must have been a nasty surprise. It would be almost impossible to get them out of the mansion. When they'd spotted Chiro near their hotel, playing with a bunch of kids and no guardian in sight, it must have been too good an opportunity to pass up; they'd reacted quickly - too quickly, and not cautiously enough. Of course, they would only have gotten Chiro that way, but it was pretty obvious that that was all they wanted. Both of Katsuro's children would be necessary for a ‘family reunion', but only one would be needed as a hostage to keep him in line. If remorse over his wife's death was giving Katsuro second thoughts, then the presence of his son in Mist would insure his loyalty.

The three men had been ready for pursuit. They had all the equipment and jutsus necessary for a quick disappearance once they were outside the walls. Mostly geared towards Taijutsu users, Gaara had noted coldly. They'd taken for granted that Lee would be the only one to pursue them to any lengths. That had also been imprudent, but not that big a miscalculation. Why should they expect Suna troops, or the Kazekage himself, to chase after children from another village? Lee was their guardian and relative, he'd feel obliged to rescue them, but the boys were nothing to Sand; they were not combatants, or from valuable bloodlines, or anything other than a drain on Sand's resources and an annoyance to their Kazekage, imposed on him by his lover's sense of duty. 

It was the way of the Shinobi. Emotions were sternly controlled. Love could be a weakness, and always came a distant second to duty. Every village, even Konoha, pushed their offspring hard for the good of their clan and village in the Chuunin exams. That was the nindo. The nindo was why Mist used to test their own children to the death before they were even Genin. The nindo was in what Gaara's father had done to his own son, too.

Gaara had spent the last three sleepless nights thinking, as he patrolled around the house and Suna's silent streets. He felt sure that the impromptu decision to adopt the boys was the best outcome for Lee, for the children, perhaps even for Gaara himself, yet he also knew that he was just about as unfit to be a child's guardian as one could imagine; a monster, a broken creature for whom affection was still alien territory. 

He was going to make some pretty horrible mistakes, even with Lee providing most of the care. But in one thing Gaara would not fail: he would never become his father. Hidden Sand no longer sacrificed its children for power or expediency, as anyone who tried to harm Chiro, Aki or any other little human in Suna would find out, painfully and terminally.

In the thick silence that had fallen in the interrogation block, everybody could hear the Sand grating against the sides of its container.

"I can see that you are angry, Kazekage-sama," Suzaku said, appearing to choose his words with care. "Keep in mind that Mist itself was not responsible for this."

"You are here."

"You did send us a message saying that three of our nationals had been caught within your boundaries. I left as soon as we realized the seriousness of the matter. But my role here is only to bring you Rock Katsuro's message and assure you that no harm was intended towards Suna, as well as our continued non-interference within your borders. Beyond that, well, the Jounin trial always holds the possibility of failure and death. These men are yours to judge, since they were caught in your village."

"Cutting all ties," Temari mouthed, her fan tilted at an angle so that only Gaara could make out her words. "Plausible deniability."

"I only ask that you either execute them cleanly, or that you release them to Mist to be judged for failing their test and compromising the relations between our nations," Suzaku concluded.

"You ask," Gaara echoed, the monotone striking odd notes against the glass walls of the cells around them.

Suzaku's face could have been carved in stone, but the cloth of his headband had caught a few beads of sweat. "You know the truth now, and you have a full apology from our village. I can guarantee that you will not get any more out of these men than what I've told you. Any attempt to further interrogate them could be...misconstrued."

Gaara's eyes flickered towards Temari.

"You mean you're afraid that we'll torture them until they tell us all of Mist's juicy secrets and defensive abilities?" Temari asked, answering Gaara's unspoken question as much as challenging the envoy.

"That act would be considered hostile towards Hidden Mist."

"Oh my, who would go to such extremes to get information on another village?" Temari demurred. In Lee's hand, the scroll from his cousin crunched a little.

Despite Lee's obvious pain and Temari's anger, the Kazekage could not afford to start a war with Mist over this incident. He caught Lee's gaze. When the Jounin was looking at him, Gaara tilted his head towards the door in a silent request. Lee knew what that meant. He left without a word. The envoy was smirking at Lee for some reason Gaara could not understand, until Lee passed next to him to get to the door and without looking shoved the scroll into Suzaku's sternum, making the man wince.

Temari's fan flicked, catching Gaara's attention and hiding the lower half of her face from anybody else. "He thinks you're about to make some sort of deal and release the prisoners, so you're sending the Leaf representative away because you don't want Kohona and your lover to disapprove," she mouthed, knowing that her little brother needed a hand, as always, with the finesses of human interaction and politics. Gaara could understand fear and power, but Temari and her fan had become indispensable aids when he negotiated more complex situations.

"I am going to release them," Gaara said, loud enough for those present to hear. Taidaka left the envoy's side and headed towards the cell door without a word or sign of hesitation. 

Temari turned away from the envoy. Gaara didn't need her help to tell that the man was satisfied, perhaps even gloating. She looked at her brother, and then she nodded and smiled slightly. "Do what you have to," she said, before turning to leave. She knew he wouldn't want her here for this either. The envoy, caught a bit short, bowed, but she'd already passed him without a glance.

Silence settled in the large room. The drip of the water from the faucet became audible through the cell door, like the quiet tick of a bomb. The Sand had stopped moving. Gaara stared at the wall a foot away from the envoy, ignoring the man's growing tension; what he was seeing was only darkness, and the need that no human could understand. 

"Sir?" Taidaka finally asked, at attention next to the cell door.

"The right hand and arm."

"How much?"

"From fingers to shoulder. Break every bone into three. Treat the injuries before you release them. I want them to live long enough to show the world what I do to those who lay a hand on what's mine."

"Yes sir."

Gaara moved towards the door without glancing back. The envoy took several steps to get out of his way.

Temari had gone on ahead to do something political and devious, as he trusted her to do. Lee was waiting for him outside in the sunshine. Gaara paused on the threshold, trying to separate the strands of darkness in his mind. The creature he was inside was pleased with the promise of pain and the message this would send, which would protect his family, his friends, his village, his people, his home, but what he really wanted to do was go back down into that room and kill the two prisoners as well as the envoy and anyone from Mist in the village.

Lee stepped up to him, slipped his hand through Gaara's and pulled him into the street. Gaara let him lead them home, glad that Lee hadn't been there, and not only because the order would have evoked some very unpleasant memories for the Jounin. Lee loved him, all of him, even the dark parts that scared everybody else, but still Gaara tried to shield him from the creature inside, the one that knew nothing of pity or forgiveness or even basic humanity. Lee was a Shinobi; if Konoha had ordered him to attack and kill those men in battle, he would have done so without hesitation. But beyond that...No, Gaara hadn't wanted his lover present when he'd given that order and Lee, fortunately, understood that. 

 

 

Day Eighty One - 7PM

 

Gaara jumped down two storeys and went in through the study window rather than bother going around to the front door. Bright light and voices drew him towards the kitchen. Kankuro had left a couple of hours ago, after helping guard the kids until the Mist delegation had departed. It was just Lee and the boys now.

Gaara dropped the gourd outside the door and leaned against the jamb. He watched as Lee held Aki's hand and guided the spoon into the infant's mouth, or somewhere in the vicinity. Lee caught a piece of cooked carrot before it could hit the high chair's table, and glanced up.

"You've come down, I see." He sounded calm, but the black eyes examined Gaara carefully. "Want something to eat?"

Gaara found his voice from somewhere deep inside. It felt rusty and odd. "It was my turn to cook."

"Oh, I know, but you looked busy. You can do it tomorrow night."

Busy. That was one way of saying that Gaara had spent most of the day on the roof, trying to put his emotions back into order before one of them slipped away from him and made him do something he wouldn't regret, whatever the fall-out...He was back now, his feelings leashed, his mind calmer and controlled. The threat was passed, the prisoners gone, all the intruders had departed. Now it was time to move forward again.

He sat down at the table and waved away Lee's attempt at getting him a plate. He wasn't hungry.

"Chiro."

The boy looked up from his yogurt in surprise, spoon in his mouth. 

"Lee and I want to adopt you two. Do you have any objections?"

Chiro just stared at him. The kid had recovered remarkably fast from his ordeal. Then again, all he remembered was the prick of a dart in the playground and waking up in the clinic later. Lee had told him that some Shinobi from another village had tried to run off with him, but that Lee and Gaara had stopped them. Chiro had accepted that with simple faith and without a question. Until he and Gaara were alone the next day, and then he did have a question. Were the bad men dead?

Not yet, Gaara had answered, but they would never get near Chiro again. Chiro had nodded and gone to play beneath the window sill rather than with his friends, but that hadn't lasted long either, and three days later he was back to normal again. It must not have occurred to him that his father could be involved, and he still had no questions about Katsuro. Yet. One day he undoubtedly would, and Gaara would give him what little knowledge they had, as well as the speculations. 

"But what about Rock Katsuro?" Temari had also asked, a few hours earlier. "I'm damn sure those Mist bastards knew about this before hand, though they know we can't prove it- but I'm just as sure they won't try that again. Katsuro, however..."

"As far as I'm concerned, he no longer exists," Gaara had answered.

"But what if he doesn’t get the, ah, the message? What if he decides that-"

"If I see him, he will die."

Temari had looked at him steadily and suggested Gaara take some time off, which was how Gaara had ended up sitting on the roof most of the day, getting his control back. Now he had it again, and the incident was closed. There was only this one last question to address.

Chiro was still staring at him blankly. Aki was trying to stuff a chunk of cooked carrot up his nose. They'd have to wait a few years before having this conversation with him. To Gaara's left, Lee had made a funny noise and let his head sink into one hand. 

"I guess that's one way of working up to the subject," he said wryly, and went to rescue the carrot from Aki.

"Do you know what that means?" Gaara asked Chiro.

Chiro sucked at the spoon and looked uncertain.

"It means you can stay here and live with us until you're an adult." A curt note from Tsunade had confirmed that she had no objection to the arrangement as long as Lee okay-ed it. As for Lee's distant relatives, they shouldn't make a fuss. They'd better not.

Chiro glanced from Gaara to Lee and back again. 

"You'll be residing here, in Sunagakure. Is that alright?"

The boy finally removed the spoon from his mouth. "Um...huh-uh?" he said tentatively.

Lee and Gaara shared a resigned look.

"Think carefully," Gaara said, deciding on one last try. "Being the wards of a Leaf Jounin and the Kazekage of Sand implies a certain level of discipline. Lee will be getting more and more missions. So will I, on occasion. You and Aki will end up spending several days at a time with a sitter, and Lee and I expect you to behave."

That earned him a dubious look before Chiro's nose quickly dipped back into his half-eaten yogurt. He was a month shy of five years old, a bit young for taking life-defining decisions (Gaara hadn't been that much older when he'd decided that killing others would be his purpose in life, but that was hardly a good, or safe, or sane comparison). With another shared glance, the lovers decided to let the matter rest for now. Chiro could face this choice again after he'd grown up a bit; when it was time to enter the Academy for instance. If the kid really wanted to, they could send him to Konoha for schooling. There were many good people in that village who would watch over Chiro with the care and level of security that Gaara would insist upon, and who would not give him any grief over the past. Gaara hoped it wouldn't come to that, though. Lee would miss the pest. After a couple of years of having him around, Gaara thought he would miss the pest as well. 

"I'm glad you're staying with us, Chiro," Lee said solemnly. Chiro looked up from his yogurt and smiled at his cousin, a bit timorously but it was a step in the right direction. Good. This might work out after all. Just one more detail to wrap up.

"Finally, I will be sleeping with Lee from now on."

Lee froze, while Chiro blinked repeatedly and turned to stare at Gaara. "Huh?"

"Lee and I are lovers. We normally sleep together." Gaara ignored Lee's muffled groan. What point was there in padding things up with needless words when the end message was still going to be the same? 

Chiro didn't look shocked, merely confused. Gaara waited. And waited. The kid put down the spoon and gave Lee an uncertain look, but he didn't ask what 'lovers' meant or what that whole sleeping together thing was about. Gaara decided he'd wait until the kid actually had a practical question to ask before going into all the details. When Chiro saw them interacting normally, he'd have a puzzled question sooner or later. And when he finally formulated it, he would ask Gaara when the two of them were alone, which would spare Lee a bit of embarrassment. Maybe quite a lot of embarrassment, Gaara judged with a glance at his lover who was already a nice cherry red and concentrating on feeding Aki with the care normally reserved to handling high-level jutsus.

"You'll need your own bed now," Gaara continued. "Having you sleep with Lee was only a temporary arrangement. You'll be growing up in this house. You couldn't stay in our bedroom forever. Lee and I will set you up with your own room, the one next to ours, so you won't be too-"

"A room?!"

Gaara paused. He'd expected some temper or alarm, but Chiro's head had shot up and his expression wasn't what Gaara had half-expected, inasmuch as he could predict any human reaction.

"I get my own room?" Chiro breathed in an awed voice. "Aki won't be in it at all? It's just for me?"

From the way Lee was looking at the boy, the Jounin hadn't expected that either. Gaara felt mildly validated, but now he'd lost the thread of control over this conversation.

Lee kindly picked it up for him. "Yes, Chiro, if you want. We have another room we can clear out for Aki. Don't know where we'll put the weapons, weights and boxes...but we do have the space if we organize things properly. Good thing this house was built for the Kazekages and their families."

Gaara stared down at his arms crossed over his chest. Family was a word he was still struggling with, even as he felt in his bones how it linked him to Temari, to Kankuro, to Lee, and now to the boys as well. When Lee used it so casually, it made it sound very real, but it also brought back the memory of his father's cold anger, his uncle's dying words...The Kazekage and his family- but not this time, no, it would not be like that this time. 

"And I can have my toys and everything in it?" Chiro asked breathlessly. "Really? Just mine? _Really_? Matto has his own room, but Yuudai sleeps with Minne and his dad because he's smaller than Matto - but I'm older than Aki, so it should be my room, not Aki's. Right? And I can have my own bed- can I have a puppy in it?"

"Ah, no, Chiro, I'm afraid dogs don't get along well with Gaara."

"But I can keep the puppy in my room." 

"That would not be practical. You see-" 

Gaara listened wordlessly to the long negotiations that followed. The Mist envoy had been easier to deal with. Aki was yammering excitedly, feeling something in the air. Chiro was trying to persuade Lee to let him sleep in _his_ room this very night, as if he suspected they might change their minds tomorrow. Gaara was surprised they wouldn't have to drag the kid out of their bedroom kicking and screaming, though in a deeper, darker part of his mind, still trapped in that memory of 'family', he wondered if Chiro simply needed a physical proof he had a place here, something a bit more solid and real than the word adoption...Lee was calming Aki down and answering Chiro as if holding two conversations at once was something he did all the time, and he was starting to smile, a great big bright grin like the sun coming out after a sandstorm.

Gaara wasn't surprised when Chiro won the argument. Lee was tucking him into the camp bed set up in the spare room an hour later. Gaara wasn't any more surprised, when he put away his work shortly after midnight and went up to what was finally his bedroom again, to find Chiro sleeping next to Lee with the utter conviction only children were capable of. Lee was awake, staring up at the ceiling dimly illuminated by the nightlight Chiro required. 

The Jounin gave Gaara a rueful smile. "I can probably put him back in his bed now, he's fast asleep-"

Gaara shook his head. He hadn't planned on sleeping tonight. It was going to take him a day or two to get back into that habit, and Aki would have to be moved out of the room first. But after three dark days and sleepless nights, he wanted to curl up next to Lee for a few hours and rest. They could shove Chiro over, or put him on Lee's other side. If he woke up and got upset over any of this, too bad. The kid could tough it out, he'd survived a lot worse. And tomorrow-...well, that was tomorrow. Gaara glanced at Aki, Chiro and Lee - the four of them illogically stuck in a single room in the middle of a large, otherwise empty mansion - and decided that tomorrow would come soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end, though not really. There are additional timestamp chapters to come.  
> I am also working on a bonus chapter, in the same vein as the one I added to The Arrangement, an AO3 exclusive if I can grind it out. It will get added to the Diplomatic Relations series as well, though it is definitely in the line of Kindred.


End file.
